ABOUT

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OUR STORY

OUR LEADERSHIP

UNION STEERING COMMITTEE

ALLIANCE STAFF

ALLIANCE UNIONS

OUR MISSION & VISION

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MISSION

Our Mission is to empower our union members, using our collective voice and our partnership to sustain high performance at Kaiser Permanente, thereby improving lives by securing leading wages, quality worklife, and quality care.

VISION

Our union members are leaders in the movement to win good living standards, access to top quality care, and a healthy life for all. Kaiser Permanente is the best place to work, and we work in partnership with management every day.

OUR FOCUS

BARGAINING

Our new 2021-2024 National Agreement (union contract) with Kaiser was ratified by all Alliance Unions in December of 2021.

PARTNERSHIP

Through the labor management partnership, we've made Kaiser Permanente the best place to receive care and the best place to work. After our powerful campaign produced a great victory and a

new National Agreement, we're committed to building strong unions so we can be strong partners in making KP the best place to work and the best place to receive care.

INCLUSION

We are committed to racial justice, diversity, equity and inclusion. The Alliance of Health Care Unions stands in solidarity against injustice, hate, and institutional and systemic racism.

Our Story

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OUR STORY

The Alliance of Health Care Unions (Alliance) is a federation of 21 local unions representing over 57,000 Kaiser Permanente employees. In 2018, the Alliance was founded by twenty-one local unions with a deep commitment to each other and continuing partnership with Kaiser Permanente to improve patient care and service and make KP the best place to work. The Alliance is a key partner in the largest and longest running Labor Management Partnership in the U.S.

ALLIANCE OF HEALTH CARE UNIONS

The Alliance includes locals of AFSCME, UFCW, USW, IBT, KPNAA, IUOE, OFNHP (AFT), UNITE HERE, ILWU, and HNHP. Our 57,000 Kaiser Permanente members work in hundreds of job classifications in every geographic area where Kaiser Permanente has a presence.

2021 National Bargaining between the Alliance and KP was the most contentious national negotiation since the start of the Partnership in 1997. More than 40,000 Alliance members were on the verge of a historic healthcare strike over concerns of short staffing and a two-tier wage system proposed by KP. At the 11th hour, Alliance unions and KP reached an agreement that preserved leading wages and benefits by defeating two-tier and included historic gains for staffing, racial justice, patient and worker safety, and wage equity.

LABOR MANAGEMENT PARTNERSHIP

Alliance Unions updated our Labor Management Partnership founding Agreement after several meetings with management. The original Agreement, first negotiated in 1997, had not been updated in the intervening 21 years. The updated LMP Agreement fully preserves our employment security and union rights, while reflect today’s priorities, structures, and challenges. Learn More

As part of our new 2018-2021 National Agreement (union contract) with Kaiser, we negotiated a new Alliance LMP Trust Fund, and we have updated the Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust structure so that it continues to provide career development benefits for members of Alliance Unions.

All partnership activities and structures, from national and regional LMP Councils to thousands of Unit-Based Teams, continue to work to make Kaiser the best place to work and the best place to receive health care.

OUR LEADERSHIP
AND STAFF
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Our Leadership

Alliance Executive Board

Hal Ruddick

Executive Director

Hal Ruddick has more than 35 years of labor leadership, starting with over a decade of organizing workers in Louisiana. He has served in a variety of union leadership positions representing healthcare workers across the country, including as a local union secretary-treasurer and local union president. He began representing labor in partnership at Kaiser Permanente in 2013. He has been with the Alliance since its founding in 2018. In 2021, he was the lead negotiator for the Alliance-KP national bargaining, where the union successfully fended off a proposed two-tier wage structure and broke new ground in contract provisions related to staffing, racial justice, joint affordability work, wage equity, Just Culture, and other areas. As the Executive Director of the Alliance, he leads the Alliance’s work in implementing the national agreement and the KP-Alliance Labor Management Partnership.

Greg Chavez

Chair, ILWU Local 28

Greg Chavez joined Kaiser in 1998 as a security officer. In 2004, he became an ILWU Local 28 union member and in 2005, he bargained the local contract for the Kaiser Permanente security officers and dispatchers in the Northwest region. Since 2005, he’s been a Chief Steward and the principal point of contact with Kaiser Permanente. Greg became Local 28 President in 2018..

Charmaine Morales

Vice Chair, UNAC/UHCP, AFSCME

UNAC/UHCP President Charmaine Morales, RN, had a mid-life career change, going from successful small business owner to med-surg nurse at Kaiser South Bay Medical Center. First elected as UNAC/UHCP Secretary in 2013, Charmaine made community service and union growth a cornerstone of her work.

In 2015, Charmaine incorporated a member engagement program union-wide. Membership Matters, as the program is called, is the foundation of our union’s leadership and growth initiatives. Charmaine built upon her Membership Matters work in 2018 in Hawaii, where she built a new chapter from the ground up. Her leadership and strategic vision for how to allow the Maui Health System workers a voice in patient care and in their workplace has been nothing short of extraordinary. As a result of her work, other health care professionals in Hawaii have been motivated to join UNAC/UHCP.

In 2016, Charmaine was elected UNAC/UHCP Executive Vice President, and became President in 2022. She’s committed to being a voice for those who feel invisible. Her start as a night shift-nurse taught her the value of listening to all voices. Her inclusive leadership style was on full display when she was a union co-lead of the Patient and Worker Safety subcommittee during negotiations with Kaiser Permanente in 2021. Her commitment to mental health and her ability to find common ground led to a change that made mental health equal to physical health. She said at the time, “The pandemic exacerbated some of the problems we already had, like fatigue, work-life balance and burnout, and brought about new challenges like PTSD. The care we give is the heart of the patient experience at KP – and we must take care of the workers. he Patient and Worker Safety subcommittee is an opportunity to address the safety gaps and make sure all of us – regardless of what we do or where we work – are safe on the job.”

Charmaine is the first woman of color to serve as UNAC/UHCP president. She is also the first Mexican-American and Filipina president, while nearly a quarter of nurses in California are Filipino or of Filipino heritage. After the Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the country in 2021, Charmaine sponsored a new racial and social justice committee for UNAC/UHCP, which led to the creation of our Alexis G. Philius Scholarship for students of Black/African descent pursuing careers in health care. She serves as a vice president of the Los Angeles Labor Council and vice president of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees (NUHHCE), a vice president of Highly Favored: A Blessing to Others, a community group dedicated to unselfish giving to the unhoused in Southern California.

Don Henley

Recording Secretary, IBT Local 166

Don Henley has been a proud member of Teamsters Local 166, for thirty one (31) years. As a Teamster he understands and has always fought for what is right for his Membership — as a steward, trustee, and now a business representative for Kaiser Permanente in San Bernardino/Riverside County. As part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions, he is looking forward to finally working as a true Alliance that we will be looking out for our Union Brother and Sisters.

Nate Bernstein

Treasurer, UFCW Local 7

Nate Bernstein, JD, Treasurer of the Alliance of Health Care Unions also serves as the Healthcare Director for United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 7, representing over two thousand health care professionals in the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Region. Nate has a passion for social justice and representing workers with the ultimate goal of ensuring that professionals in health care have a voice in their work and can deliver safe, quality care. Nate grew up in Northwest New Jersey, and went to undergraduate and law school at Seattle University. He now lives south of Denver with his girlfriend, her daughter, and their dog.

Jonathon Baker

Executive Board Member, OFNHP Local 5017, AFT

Terilyn Carvalho Luke

Executive Board Member, HNHP

Terilyn Carvalho Luke, BSN, RN is the interim president of the Hawaii Nurses and Healthcare Professionals (HNHP). Carvalho Luke has been a registered nurse at Kaiser Permanente Hawaii for over 30 years and currently works in the perioperative service area. She also has over 15 years of union experience and served in various positions and committees under Hawaii Nurses Association and HNHP. Her various roles include chief steward, board director, trustee, UBT consultant, contract specialist, and national and local bargaining team negotiator. She is a strong advocate of the Labor Management Partnership and is passionate about empowering frontline members through the corrective action/grievance process. Carvalho Luke believes in the saying “Knowledge is Power” and is involved in engaging and educating nurses at all levels, especially to advance the future of the nursing profession and strengthen union activism.

Shig Cash Noguchi

Executive Board Member, USW

Shig Cash Noguchi is the International Staff Representative for the United Steelworkers. He has been a union member since 1990. Noguchi first joined the labor movement as a shop steward at Weyerhaeuser Paper Co Local 810 in Anaheim, CA in 2002. Since then, Noguchi has served in multiple roles with USW including Local Recording Secretary, President, Grievance, Negotiating and Safety Committees. He joined USW Staff in 2010 and was assigned over 30 facilities Southern California in various sectors of our union including oil and chemical, paper, aerospace, steel, rail, and others. He is currently a Trustee on a Taft-Hartley Benefits Trust, and USW District 12 Civil and Human Rights Co-Coordinator. I have a passion to work in the trenches with our local leaders advocating on behalf our membership and negotiating better terms and conditions to improve our members and their family’s livelihood.

Kathleen Theobald

Executive Board Member, KPNAA

Kathleen Theobald serves as the Executive Director for the Kaiser Permanente Nurse Anesthetists Association (KPNAA), which represents the Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) employed at Kaiser Permanente facilities in Southern California. A communications C-Level Professional with a reputation for vision casting and “delivering the goods,” creatively and logistically, Ms. Theobald provides innovative and intelligent guidance in multi-generational and multi-disciplinary negotiations, relationship development and management, crisis-management and facilitation as well as in the creation of strategies to strengthen and set a company apart from the crowd.

Ms. Theobald represents KPNAA and labor partner unions as the Chair of the Executive Board of The Alliance of Health Care Unions (AHCU), as well as on Regional and National Kaiser Permanente Councils and Committees, including: Jobs of the Future, Executive Labor Sponsor; Southern California Regional LMP Council, Labor Chair; and the Labor Management Partnership Strategy Group, to name a few.

Hiking, learning, wandering and exploring the world with her family and friends is what occupies Ms. Theobald’s time when she is not at work.

Michael Ulloa

Executive Board Member, IUOE Local 501

Michael Ulloa has more than 12 years of experience in the labor movement, starting with the largest comprehensive campaign in history with the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) in Las Vegas. During his tenure with IUOE, he’s served as a Corporate Researcher, Organizer and Business Representative. In his current role with IUOE Local 501, Ulloa serves as the Business Representative for the Southern California Kaiser Permanente facilities. He has earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of California Los Angeles and has been a member of IUOE Local 501 since 2013.

Cade Watanabe

Executive Board Member, UNITE HERE! Local 5

Cade Watanabe is Financial Secretary-Treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 5 which represents over 10,000 hotel, health care & food service workers throughout Hawai‘i. Prior to assuming his role as Local 5’s principal officer in April 2023, Cade served as Staff Director and Sr. Vice-President (and has been a member of Local 5 for 18 years). Cade was born & raised on the Hāmākua Coast of the island of Hawai’i and currently resides on O‘ahu with his wife Lauren and two young children.

Union Steering Cmmittee

UNION STEERING COMMITTEE

The Steering Committee develops programs, bargaining strategies and objectives, and contract enforcement strategies in conjunction with the Executive Board and the Executive Director. Every local union in the Alliance is represented on the Union Steering Committee, which meets three times a year.

Alliance Staff

ALLIANCE STAFF DIRECTORY

Cassandra Braun

Director, Learning, Performance Improvement

Jessica Butz

Director, National Workforce Planning, Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust

Katie Ekstrom

Director, Northwest

Sandra Flores

Chief of Staff

Yael Foa

Director, Georgia, Mid-Atlantic States

Erika Jaramillo

Administrative Director

Christina Kaoh

Director, HR Administration and Operations

Julie Kwiek

Deputy Executive Director

Renee LaPointe

Director, Southern California & Northern California – San Bernardino Fontana / Ontario - Riverside / Moreno Valley / Regional Operations
Education & Training, Performance Improvement, Supportive Services