Kaiser Permanente Strike Continues As Healthcare Workers Demand Better Staffing, Wages

More than 31,000 Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers remained on strike Tuesday, demanding the company come back to the national bargaining table to complete negotiations over staffing, wages and benefits. 

“We are here to help Kaiser thrive, and if they let us, we will make Kaiser the place people want to work at again,” Nicole Wooten, a registered nurse at the Kaiser Permanente Riverside Medical Center, said in an interview with The Riverside Record. “If Kaiser won’t do it, and Kaiser doesn’t care about being the best place to work, the best place to get safe patient care, then that is our job as a union and as nurses to make it happen.”

Wooten, who is also the Kaiser Riverside Registered Nurses – Union of Health Care Professionals (KRRN-UHCP) Hospital President, said United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP) first started bargaining the now expired contract last March. With the two sides unable to come to an agreement, the contract expired September 30, 2025.

“Ideally we would have had a new contract,” Douglas Wong, a physician assistant in urology and KRRN-UHCP Clinic President, said in an interview with The Record. “That didn’t happen, and we were still working on bargaining until December, when Kaiser Permanente walked away.”

The union has been on strike since January 26. The core issues at hand, the union said, were staffing shortages, fair wages and retirement and benefits security. According to the union, Kaiser Permanente’s wage and benefits proposals would drive away clinicians, adding to existing staffing shortages. The union also alleged that the company’s proposals would disproportionately negatively impact newly unionized employees. 

Wong said he was hopeful that Kaiser Permanente and the union would be able to come to an agreement that ensures safe staffing levels, fair wages and secured benefits for all union members.

“We would like to think that Kaiser Permanente, as they say in their advertisements, are interested in improving patient care and are interested in ensuring that patients who have these exorbitant premiums are getting the care that they need,” he said. “And if that’s the case, then you know, we’ll be able to find a spot, a place where we can find common ground, but I worry that things are not as they say they are as in their advertisements.”

The union also accused the Kaiser Permanente of illegally stalling negotiations and bypassing the established national bargaining process. Kaiser Permanente disputed the unfair labor practice charge, and said that it was shifting from national to local bargaining in an effort to get the contracts to the finish line.

In a Friday statement, Kaiser Permanente called the strike unnecessary, disruptive and counterproductive, noting that more than 40% of nurses and pharmacists had returned to work.

“These returning employees are joining physicians, nurses, staff, managers, and contingency personnel to ensure continued care for our patients and members,” the statement said. “We are actively rescheduling nonurgent procedures postponed over the past week.”

The healthcare company further said that its proposal was the “strongest compensation package in Kaiser Permanente’s national bargaining history and keeps employees among the best paid caregivers in the country,” with total compensation set to increase roughly 30% over the course of the contract term.

While the company’s hospitals, emergency departments and medical offices remained open, some of its pharmacies were closed or operating with modified hours. Additionally, Kaiser Permanente said some appointments had been shifted to virtual care, nonurgent procedures had been postponed and some patients had experienced delays and long wait times as a result of the strike.