Oakland’s Largest Private Employer Tells Employees to Stay in Buildings for Lunch
“Kaiser Permanente is committed to ensuring the safety and security of our employees and physicians across all of our locations.”
Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA, told its employees to eat their lunch in the building due to numerous robberies of workers on their lunch breaks.
Employee Arielle Crenshaw told KTVU: “It’s just kind of scary in general, not even just to go to work, just kind of coming outside. If you can work at home, work at home. If you have to come in, just be safe about it.”
Kaiser also told those not in Oakland who come to the city not to have meetings downtown or hold them online.
Kaiser told KTVU: “Those recommendations remain in place for now. Kaiser Permanente is committed to ensuring the safety and security of our employees and physicians across all of our locations. We continually monitor our environments for concerns, review our practices and strengthen them wherever possible.”
A few owners of restaurants in downtown Oakland think the directive is “overkill.”
The workers can have their food delivered to work.
The memo is also a recommendation. Employees can emerge from the building for lunch.
But why would they? Many of the employees have been robbed while going out to lunch.
Oakland is a mess.
In-N-Out, a staple in California, will close its only restaurant in Oakland on March 24.
The company cited “regular car break-ins, property damage, theft, and armed robberies of customers and employees.”
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A few owners of restaurants in downtown Oakland think the directive is “overkill.”
Sure they do. It hurts their bottom line. They make more money off the people they pull in and upsell.
I worked in North Philadelphia near Temple University Hospital. Employees and students at Temple University are robbed and accosted daily.
I escaped. Few do.
That said, this is probably an HR move to quell a push to work from home online.
How would that work?
“Yes, it’s dangerous to come into work, so you’ll need to stay inside once you get here. And no you can’t work from home.”
I don’t follow you on this one.
We saw similar during the pandemic.
“We’re not safe we must stay home and work….give us our laptops and our couches”
What sounds like happened is several incidents of employees being robbed on their lunch break prompted a response.
I wouldn’t doubt if the usual faction of “work from home (aka not work)” decided not to let a crisis go to waste as has been happening at many businesses all over the country, and they are especially obsessed with it in blue CA.
Look up Cali’s stance over this. When a business allows work from home they also have to reimburse employees for “work from home” expenses. Think about that…they have to pay people to work at home to probably be less productive, but they don’t have to pay for their gas and attire if they come to work and have all the tech they need in-house and cheaper. There’s also people that want to leave high cost residences in California and work from home/remote would give them a shot at that.
I’m not saying I blame them, but a business is going to resist anything like that and do it with statements like these as an indirect response to the dissenters. If Oakland were truly too unsafe for Kaiser (or continues to worsen), they will/would simply move out of the city altogether.
Welcome to liberal America. Policies so great that they have to be forced on citizens.
I do not know how dangerous the streets of Oakland really are, but this memo from Kaiser to its employees is probably coming straight from Legal, seeking to avoid lawsuits from employees getting killed or injured in the ‘hood.
Yes indeed, and it will accelerate employee demands to Work From Home. Which means even more vacant office space, and increased business failures of retail that depends on downtown foot traffic.
CA is dying, newscum is smiling.
Or like I said, an HR chess move that both limits their liability and is a response to employees saying “we want to work from home so ‘we don’t feel safe'”
That said, it is Oakland, so it’s probably a combination of the two.
The GOP’s 2024 campaign ads in all media should state:
“If you want your town or city to be as safe and lovely as Kabul, Mogadishu, Gaza, etc., vote for Biden and the Dhimmi-crats!”
One would like to think that this would have an impact, but democrats have a large contingent of lo-fo voters who would likely not even recognize these names, let alone their significance. Their only concern is “gimme my check”.
Oakland is only 1/3 white.
But that’s exactly what Democrat voters want. They are voting for the destruction of America.
Gov newscum turning CA cities into 3rd world ghettos.
The doom loop is accelerating now.
Far more cities are shit people should leave cities as fast as they can. get their affairs together.
Not in red states .
The cities are still livable where the police and courts enforce the rule of law
I won’t be surprised if Sutter Health in SF & Sacramento has done the same thing.
It’s like an amusement park for criminals.
They should invite the DA’s to lunch at Kaiser a couple times a week.
Make sure they park their cars in the most vulnerable spots, and leak when they’re arriving with full wallets of cash.
Will Kaiser Permenente have armed security on the doors to keep the robbers from invading the offices to rob their victims?
If they wanted to make their area safe, they could offer to cover the cost of concealed carry licenses and the associated training CA requires, and make their building and parking lot a gun-friendly zone.
I bet the restaurants would love to deliver there after that went on for a while.
It’s actually pretty common to have an armed guard at “Security Desk” monitoring an electronic badge checkpoint. Authorized personnel scan their badges, and all others must sign in at the Security Desk.
My company, in Dallas, has had this system for at least 20 years.
Regarding food deliveries – the food stops at the Security Desk and recipient must go there to pick it up….no Pizza Guys wandering the building.
Given current … concepts in operation in Oakland and San Fran, etc., what could a security guard do if someone just walked through their checkpoint without stopping?
Or, do you think Breed, et al, would look differently upon a security guard at a non-retail business tackling or otherwise assaulting a law-breaker than they do with shoplifting?
What’s so hard about this? The security is armed. They will stop the intruder and contact the police. This is not a public access area as is a retail store.
If you want to say that the intruder is crazy and will get into a shoot-out with the security guards, or that the police will never come, okay. That might happen but it is not likely that some street level robber is going to want to fight armed security guards to get into an office building.
I can’t speculate what the courts will do later with a trespasser, but that’s moving the goal posts.
If the intruder comes back again, the guards will stop him/her/it again.
You are right it’s not a “public access” area, and that might make enough of a difference to the Soros prosecutors and such.
I was just pointing out it’s not a guarantee, given the craziness we’ve seen with shoplifters.
Is there a law on the books in CA preventing businesses from being sued when their security guards injure someone?
Oakland is the home of the Black Panthers. My last
duty station was Oakland NRMC up on Oak Knoll Hill. Went downtown a couple of times to see Jack London Square. It was dicy in 1980. It’s downright scary today. Oakland is run by socialists and it shows. There is no police presence. The hoods run the streets. If you think San Francisco is bad…
FJB
Why not just hook the employees up to a protein drip and broadcast the food channel at noon?
Animal protein or vegetable protein?
I think people would be surprised at how often certain urban areas near US military bases will be made off limits to enlisted personnel and sometimes even officers by base command. Downtown Baltimore is notorious for being placed on the off-limits list which impacts Aberdeen Proving Ground, Ft. Detrick and other MD bases. These kinds of restrictions are harder to implement in DC because there are so many military installations scattered all over the city, often adjacent to high-crime areas…like Marine Corps Barracks 8th & I. But, service members are often strongly encouraged to stay around on the base and to never travel alone if travel is unavoidable.
Eventually, Kaiser will leave Oakland.
“Kaiser Non-Permanente ?”
Hopefully for Texas.
Subotai Bahadur
Oakland sucked when I worked there for KP back in 1997. I can hardly imagine walking the streets there in 2024, at any time of day or night.
Once upon a time the Kaiser Shipyards, from which sprung the Kaiser health plans for his employees, were heavily guarded against subversive/criminal activity.
Of course that was in the middle of a world war…