legacy

“We have demonstrated that empowered health care workers deliver higher quality care at a more affordable cost—and in so doing, create the value that provides for industry-leading wages, benefits and quality of work life. Our model serves to inspire the movement for affordable, high-quality universal health care.”—Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions

A few years ago, our union coalition which represents more than 90,000 Kaiser Permanente employees, adopted this as our “legacy statement.” We believe that, as opposed to a mission statement, a legacy statement provides not just inspiration but also deep accountability for the changes we want to see.

Delegates at the 210 UDC are thinking about the legacy of  change they will leave beind.

Hear from frontliners:

Audrey King of OPEIU Local 2 in the Mid-Atlantic States is proud of what her union and the Labor Management Partnership have built. She's invested in the future of Partnership, not just for herself and her co-workers, but also for her daughter, now a labor and delivery nurse with KP.

The theme of the 2010 Union Delegate Conference is "spread change." As we move forward spreading the profound culture change comes with unit-based teams, frontline leaders are reflecting on what the legacy of change means.

More than 600 delegates opened their annual conference on March 12 with a tribute to John Sweeney, president emeritus of the AFL-CIO.   Before the event got under way, Union Coalition Executive Director John August caught up with Sweeney, who played a pivotal role in launching the Partnership in 1997. The two chatted about where the Partnership has come and where we're headed.

A continuing theme of this blog is to challenge us to build a new language as a tool for creating change. One way of helping us to do that is to think about what our legacy might be.

How will we look back on our work?  How can we know for sure that our contributions actually helped to create a better future?

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions is currently experimenting with a legacy statement:

“Workers were empowered to deliver health care at a lower cost and higher quality.