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Kaiser Permanente is the largest managed care organization in the country. It also happens to have the largest and most complex labor-management partnership ever created in the United States. This book tells the story of that partnership-how it started, how it grew, who made it happen, and the lessons to be learned from its successes and complications. With twenty-seven unions and an organization as complex as 8.6-million-member Kaiser Permanente, establishing the partnership was not a simple task and maintaining it has proven to be extraordinarily challenging.
Thomas A. Kochan, Adrienne E. Eaton, Robert B. McKersie, and Paul S. Adler are among a team of researchers who have been tracking the evolution of the partnership between Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions ever since 2001. They review the history of health care labor relations and present a profile of Kaiser Permanente as it has developed over the years. They then delve into the partnership, discussing its achievements and struggles, including the negotiation of the most innovative collective bargaining agreements in the history of American labor relations. They conclude with an assessment of the Kaiser partnership's effect on the larger health care system and its implications for labor-management relations in other industries.
Reviews
"Healing Together tells the remarkable story of a decade-long labor-management partnership between Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's first—and still largest—integrated health care systems, and its many unions. It is a tale filled with drama, as memorable individuals and complex coalitions take action before a compelling backdrop of institutions, interests, and initiatives. The authors provide wise insights into the many forces that conspire to undermine the labor-management partnership. Healing Together's clear-eyed view of the ever-present perils and potential payoffs for all parties makes this the most comprehensive and valuable account of labor-management innovation in years—and just in time, as the nation turns to the twin challenges of reforming both labor relations and health care."—John Paul MacDuffie, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania "Health care provision is often seen as an insurance problem or a technology problem. In Healing Together, the authors show that a key ingredient to effective health care delivery is the climate of labor-management relations andthey provide an admirable road map for achieving a sustainable, cooperative climate."—Daniel J. B. Mitchell, UCLA “Scholars and practitioners of employment relations and health policy and administration are anxious to learn how the Kaiser Permanente partnership has performed and what it has accomplished since its inception. The authors of Healing Together provide an accurate, honest, thorough and compelling account of the partnership. Drawing on interviews with key players, surveys, and data collected by the KPP, the authors show how the partnership developed and functioned, where it succeeded and failed, and what can be learned from the experience.”-Paul F. Clark, Pennsylvania State University
About the Author
Thomas A. Kochan is George M. Bunker Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of several books, including Up in the Air, also from Cornell. Adrienne E. Eaton is Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at the School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University-The State University of New Jersey. She is the coeditor of Employment Dispute Resolution and Worker Rights in the Changing Workplace, also available from Cornell. Robert B. McKersie is Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His many books include Strategic Negotiations, also from Cornell. Paul S. Adler is Professor of Management and Organization at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He is the coeditor most recently of The Firm as a Collaborative Community.
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