More than 35,000 union-represented Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers voted this weekend to authorize a strike following months of negotiations on contracts expiring Sept. 30.
The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), shared word of “an overwhelming majority vote” in favor of a walkout among the roughly 32,000 registered nurses, pharmacists, therapists and other front-line care professionals whose contracts are up in the air. The union represents more than 40,000 California and Hawaii workers in total.
Additionally, the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP) announced 97% of its voting members had also authorized a strike. That union represents nearly 4,000 nurses, lab professionals, social workers, counselors and others in Oregon and southwest Washington who are also staring down a Sept. 30 contract expiration.
Both groups are part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which represents 62,000 Kaiser Permanente workers including 52,000 whose contracts will expire on Sept. 30 or Oct. 1. As of this weekend, more than 46,000 under the alliance voted to authorize strikes across six states and Washington, D.C., the groups said.
“Kaiser is betting we won’t unite and push for the change that patients need,” UNAC/UHCP President Charmaine S. Morales said in the union’s vote announcement. “This overwhelming vote proves them wrong. When we stand together, Kaiser will have no choice but to recognize the need to value our labor and ensure safe staffing and care.”
Kaiser, in an emailed statement, stressed that a strike authorization vote "does not mean a strike is inevitable" and that it has been negotiating in good faith since May.
"It is disappointing that union leadership would choose to authorize a strike, which could disrupt care for our members and patients, while we are actively working toward an agreement,” the nonprofit system said.
In the weekend’s statements and others released amid the negotiations, the unions described “stagnant wage proposals” amid rising living expenses and accused the massive nonprofit system of unsafe staffing levels. The UNAC/UHCP also said proposals brought by employee groups related to patient care have been repeatedly shot down by Kaiser’s management.
The broader Alliance of Health Care Unions, in its latest monthly negotiation update released Sept. 13, said members' local bargaining teams had been making progress on some areas, like employee and clinical judgment protections related to the adoption and rollout of artificial intelligence and other technologies, “but remain far apart on local economic issues” related to pay and other pain points on “critical scheduling and template language” affecting staffing agreements.
Kaiser said its most recent offer, given just before that monthly negotiation update, comprised an across-the-board wage increase totaling 20% over four years, "including the largest pay increases proposed for the first two years of a national agreement in 25 years. We are also offering enhancements to our already generous benefits and retirement programs—including retiree medical coverage, which fewer employers provide—along with increased investments in education resources to support long-term career growth."
The unions have often contrasted Kaiser’s multibillion-dollar net income and investment portfolio, as well as its ambitious expansion plans, against what they describe as unfair and unsafe labor compensation. The organization is the largest nonprofit health system in the country, reporting $115.8 billion in revenue, a $596 million operating income (0.3% operating margin) and $12.9 billion in net income (inclusive of an acquisition-fueled $6.8 billion one-time influx) across 2024.
“Cutting frontline care costs is a choice—a choice that’s not in the patients’ best interest. Our choice is for Kaiser to go back to the days when it worked collaboratively in partnership with its workers on creating high-quality workplace conditions and decisions that put patients first,” Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals President Sarina Roher said. “The experts who provide the care must shape the care plans; that’s how patients thrive. Healthcare decisions belong in the hands of those who deliver the care, not those who balance the books.”
Kaiser's statement outlined the addition of 6,300 new workers across 2024. It said that Alliance-represented employees at the system have an 8% turnover rate, well below the industry's 20% average, and asserted that its staffing practices "consistently meets—and often exceeds—mandated nurse-to-patient ratios."
The unions are required to give Kaiser a 10-day notice ahead of any strike, which the system has not yet received but OFNHP said could come “any time after Sept. 30.” The groups also said they will continue bargaining in good faith.