Research Associates and Assistants work very hard to make the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research successful by doing the day to day tasks required to keep mostly NIH funded public health research projects going strong. Without these workers' contributions, no data would be collected, analyzed, reported, or published in medical journals. The vast majority of these workers are not represented by Labor Unions and are paid low salaries.
Many of these research projects are high profile studies that receive attention from the media and other groups within the organization. Upper management - both within the department and outside the department - likes to tout these high profile projects as great successes - feathers in their caps - achievements like no others in public heath research. This year a lavish party was thrown to celebrate fifty years of achievement in public health research and no expenses were spared. Simultaneously, thirty lower level workers were handed sixty day layoff notices without any severance pay or rehiring support, despite years of loyal service and excellent performance reviews.
Upper management has created a class divide between the six figure salaries paid to administrative employees and the hard-working underpaid Research Assistants and Associates. Several administrative level employees in supervisory roles are incompetent, lack basic management skills, and have disdain for lower level workers. Bullying and defamation from people in positions of power toward lower paid workers are common experiences that have been occurring for years. Power-hungry narcissists are allowed to continue inappropriate behavior without any consequences or correction from the top.
