On Saturday, Kaiser Permanente and the union representing nearly 50,000 medical workers reached a preliminary agreement on the contract, which narrowly avoided strike Tens of thousands next week.

The transaction is between Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance of Healthcare Alliances, an alliance of 21 labor organizations, including the California Union Nurses Association/ Alliance of Healthcare Professionals, Hawaiian Nurses and Healthcare Professionals, and Oregon Federation of Nurses and Healthcare Professionals.Preparations for other unions representing employees of the non-profit integrated health system based in Oakland, California Join Union Workers strike.

The Economic Subcommittee of the Health Care Alliance approved the draft contract on Saturday. A larger panel vote will be held next, after which union members will vote on approval before the four-year contract is finalized. The alliance expects this process to take several weeks. The transaction will be retroactive to October 1, which is the expiration date of the previous Alliance contract.

“This agreement will mean that patients will continue to receive the best care, and alliance members will have the best jobs,” said Hal Rudick, executive director of the Healthcare Alliance, in a press conference. “This contract protects our patients, provides safe staffing, and guarantees that every member of the alliance receives fair wages and benefits.”

According to the press release, according to the interim agreement, workers will receive annual wage increases before 2025, medical and dental benefits will not be cut, the opportunity to receive bonuses through the newly formulated plan, and will be protected by the new security staffing language.

Negotiations between the health system and the labor union were put on hold because of Kaiser Permanente’s proposed two-level wage system, which would provide new employees with lower salaries than existing employees. Neither party will comment on whether the two-tier structure is included in the temporary contract, but it is not listed in the publicly shared terms.

“This landmark agreement puts Kaiser Permanente into a successful future, focusing on providing affordable and easy-to-use high-quality healthcare to our more than 12 million members and the communities we serve. It also emphasizes our efforts to maintain Industry leadership makes an unwavering commitment to employees’ wages and benefits,” Kaiser Permanente Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Christian Meisner said in a press release. “These are challenging negotiations, but this interim agreement is a testament to the strength of our labor management partnership and the unique success we can achieve when we work together.”

The labor management partnership is a 24 year old promise The health system and its unions (now known as the Kaiser Permanente Union Confederation and Healthcare Union Confederation) work together to make decisions about patient care, accessibility, and quality.

Although all strikes in the Health Care League have been cancelled, it is not clear Other unions It will also be cancelled, one of which was initiated by the local International Union of Operations Engineers in northern California, which began to consider wages and working conditions in mid-September.