SEIU & KaiPerm Give Us The "F" Word...

...no, it's not what you are thinking, but it's pretty darn close. It turns out that a big chunk of those 150 Pharmacy jobs that Zombie UHW was bragging on having "saved" bear little, if any, resemblance to the jobs that were pink-slipped in the days leading up to the August 4th agreement.

Once again, Zombie UHW has not released the text of the agreement to its affected members - it has taken NUHW representatives to put it out to the people, and the agreement can be accessed by clicking here.

It's not like this most recent "victory" on the part of the Plague will affect just those pharmacy employees that were pink-slipped - after all, this is SEIU, and SEIU doesn't play that way. No, friends and neighbors, this agreement will affect up to one-third of the entire Pharmacy staff of KPNC, and it will affect them in a way that the prior leadership of UHW did not allow KaiPerm to do back in the 2005 negotiations. I'll let NUHW explain:
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Dave Regan Continues His March Backwards with Our Contract

With the recent Northern California Pharmacy Agreement SEIU agreed to allow a full third of benefited employees in the Pharmacy to give up their guaranteed hours. SEIU, also as usual, had side conversations during the bargaining where no members were present. SEIU agreed that:

• Up to a full third of the current benefitted Pharmacy employees will be affected by this change— many more employees will be affected than were given notice of job elimination.
• Current Full Time Employees may be required to take 24+ positions. When the Pharmacy is busy they will work their former full time schedule but when work is slow they can go down to 24 hours a week.
• Pharmacy workers will be required to travel to other facilities.
• Pharmacy workers will have their start times changed whenever it suits the Employer.
• On‐call employees won’t be needed as before because the benefitted workers have taken their place. Before, a part‐time employee could say no to additional hours—Not anymore.
• The agreement is full of loopholes and easy for Kaiser to interpret to its advantage and disputes are not subject to the grievance procedure but are sent to some Committee.

With the Scare of Layoffs, Was this What Kaiser and SEIU Planned?

In bargaining in 2005 and in years past Kaiser has attempted to get this concession from us and we said no. SEIU has given away what we were always able to stop.

• How can benefitted workers make financial plans if they have no guaranteed hours?
• How can single parents plan for childcare?
• How can workers go to school?

This is all about the “F’ Word = Flexibility

SEIU has now conceded to Kaiser that having a regular assignment with regular hours is a thing of the past. This will now be what happens in all the classifications hit by lay off notices. What Kaiser and SEIU want workers to say is: “I’m‐just‐glad‐I‐have‐a‐job.” How things have changed!!

Kaiser is in charge and we are being flexed. It’s not about the economy. Kaiser has wanted this for years and now SEIU has agreed to flex us. Even SEIU says Kaiser has no economic problems.

Kaiser and SEIU have flexed us. Yes the “F” word!!!!!

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I, of course, have a different "F" word in mind for Zombie UHW...

Update on 10/4/09: The link to the Pharmacy agreement has now been updated to link to images of the actual signed document, so we can all see for ourselves who at KaiPerm (and who at SEIU's Zombie UHW unit) are more interested in giving us all the collective "F word."