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kaiser permanente
31,000 Kaiser Nurses Strike as Their Union Says Employer Puts 'Profit Over Patients'
The head of the striking nurses' union says Kaiser Permanente would "rather protect an enormous financial cushion than protect patients and the people who care for them."
Jan 26, 2026
More than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and other healthcare professionals walked off the job Monday in two western states, accusing their employer of caring more about profits than patients and highlighting what they say are KP's unfair labor practices.
United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP)—a member of the Alliance of Healthcare Unions (AHCU)—said that 31,000 frontline registered nurses and other medical workers at more than two dozen KP hospitals and hundreds of clinics in California and Hawaii went on an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike that would continue indefinitely until they get a fair contract.
"On the picket lines, healthcare workers will call attention to what’s at stake in settling a fair contract: the growing crisis caused by Kaiser’s failure to invest in safe staffing levels, timely access to quality care, and fair wages for frontline caregivers," UNAC/UHCP said in a statement Monday.
Registered nurse and UNAC/UHCP president Charmaine Morales said: “We’re not going on strike to make noise. We’re striking because Kaiser has committed serious unfair labor practices and because Kaiser refuses to bargain in good faith over staffing that protects patients, workload standards that stop moral injury, and the respect and dignity that Kaiser caregivers have been denied for far too long."
“Striking is the lawful power of working people, and we are prepared to use it on behalf of our profession and patients," Morales added.
ON STRIKE: The UNAC/UHCP Unfair Labor Practice strike starts TODAY! 31,000+ Kaiser Permanente nurses and health care workers in CA and Hawai'i are holding the line for quality patient care and a fair contract! #TogetherWeWin #SafeStaffingSavesLives #PatientsOverProfits
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— AFSCME (@afscme.bsky.social) January 26, 2026 at 9:57 AM
The new strike follows last October's walk-off by over 75,000 nurses and allied healthcare workers at KP facilities in California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii over stalled contract negotiations and other issues including pay, staffing levels, and working conditions.
UNAC/UHCP had been negotiating with KP since last May. After KP management left the bargaining table last month, the union filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which has cited KP for numerous violations in recent years.
KP is the nation's largest integrated managed care consortium of nonprofit and for-profit entities. According to a 2025 investigation by Matthew Cunningham-Cook for the Center for Media and Democracy in conjunction with the American Prospect, KP "is sitting on $67.4 billion in reserves, up from $40 billion just four years ago."
Kaiser collected $12.9 billion in net income in 2024 and $7.9 billion through the third quarter of 2025.
A new UNAC/UHCP report, "Profits Over Patients," details how KP "has strayed from its founding mission and moved towards profit, expansion, and Wall Street-style asset accumulation that has created real consequences for patient care and caregiver well-being."
Morales said that “when Kaiser says it doesn’t have resources to fix staffing, what we hear is that a nonprofit health care organization would rather protect an enormous financial cushion than protect patients and the people who care for them."
UFW in solidarity with the 31,000 nurses and health care workers who are on strike in California and Hawaii.#UnionStrong #1U
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— United Farm Workers (@ufw.bsky.social) January 26, 2026 at 10:47 AM
Zach Pritchett, an emergency room nurse at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles, told LA Progressive, “I see the end result of the poor staffing every single day."
“What I’m seeing in the ER are Kaiser members who can’t get appointments for months at a time with their own primary care physicians—so they wind up here," he added.
Some strikers drew attention to the killing by Trump administration immigration enforcers of intensive care registered nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday.
"He is one of us." "He was trying to help a woman stand up and he was assassinated. He did what nurses do, take care of others." "There's so many people here that will do the same."
Kaiser nurses on strike in California speak against ICE murder of nurse Alex Pretti pic.twitter.com/2k54Ojuqn9
— World Socialist Web Site (@WSWS_Updates) January 26, 2026
KP responded to the new strike in a statement declaring, "Our focus remains on reaching agreements that recognize the vital contributions of our employees while ensuring high-quality, affordable care."
"We have proposed 21.5% wage increases—our strongest national bargaining offer ever—and we are prepared to close agreements at local tables now," it addded. "Employees deserve their raises, and patients deserve our full attention, not prolonged disputes."
On a picket line outside KP's Oakland Medical Center, San Francisco nurse anesthetist Jessica Servin told KQED that “we’re fighting for our livelihoods, we’re fighting for patient care."
“I believed their values and their mission statement,” Servin said of KP, where she's worked for 20 years. “It feels like they’re deviating from the foundation of why Kaiser was built. It feels kind of sad to be here and realize that Kaiser is choosing profit over patients.”
National figures supporting the strike include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who posted on Bluesky, "I stand in solidarity with the more than 31,000 Kaiser nurses and healthcare workers on strike in California and Hawaii."
"It’s well past time for Kaiser to return to the table with a fair offer for their workers that includes safer staffing ratios and higher wages," he added.
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Largest Healthcare Strike in US History Begins as Kaiser Workers Revolt
"We have folks getting injured on the job because they're trying to do too much and see too many people and work too quickly," said one union leader, demanding better staffing levels. "It's not a sustainable situation."
Oct 04, 2023
Tens of thousands of healthcare workers across the United States began a three-day strike against Kaiser Permanente on Wednesday to protest the nonprofit hospital giant's alleged unfair labor practices, bad-faith bargaining, inadequate wages, and chronic staff shortages that employees say are harming them and patients.
The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which represents the 75,000 Kaiser workers who are expected to walk off the job Wednesday, said picket lines will be set up at hundreds of Kaiser hospitals and facilities in California, Colorado, Washington, and other states, as well as in Washington, D.C.
The walkout is expected to be the largest healthcare worker strike in U.S. history.
"Jobs affected by the strike include licensed vocational nurses, emergency department technicians, radiology technicians, ultrasound sonographers, teleservice representatives, respiratory therapists, x-ray technicians, optometrists, certified nursing assistants, dietary services, behavioral health workers, surgical technicians, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, transporters, home health aides, phlebotomists, medical assistants, dental assistants, call center representatives, and housekeepers, among hundreds of other positions," the coalition said in a statement.
Renée Saldaña, a spokesperson for SEIU United Healthcare Workers West—which is part of the Kaiser union coalition—told the Los Angeles Times that "healthcare workers want to be at the facilities with their patients."
"They're doing this for their patients because of the delays in care, because of the short-staffing crisis," said Saldaña.
The strike kicked off after contract talks between union negotiators and Kaiser—which
reported nearly $3.3 billion in net income in the first half of 2023—stalled Tuesday night without a tentative contract agreement. The previous four-year contract expired at the end of September, and negotiations over a new agreement began in April.
"We continue to have frontline healthcare workers who are burnt out and stretched to the max and leaving the industry," Caroline Lucas, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, told CNBC. "We have folks getting injured on the job because they're trying to do too much and see too many people and work too quickly. It's not a sustainable situation."
Union negotiators have called on Kaiser to hire at least 10,000 new workers by the end of the year to help alleviate staff shortages that—according to a recent survey of healthcare workers in California—have resulted in care being delayed or denied.
Negotiators have also demanded a $25 minimum wage for all Kaiser employees and a
24.5% wage increase over the course of a new four-year contract.
The company has refused to meet many of the unions' core demands, offering wage proposals that
would not even keep up with inflation.
"Kaiser executives are refusing to listen to us and are bargaining in bad faith over the solutions we need to end the Kaiser short-staffing crisis," said Jessica Cruz, a licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center. "I see my patients' frustrations when I have to rush them and hurry on to my next patient. That's not the care I want to give. We're burning ourselves out trying to do the jobs of two or three people, and our patients suffer when they can't get the care they need due to Kaiser's short-staffing."
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Largest Healthcare Worker Strike in US History Set to Kick Off on Oct. 4
"We're burning ourselves out trying to do the jobs of two or three people, and our patients suffer when they can't get the care they need due to Kaiser's short-staffing," said one Kaiser Permanente worker.
Oct 02, 2023
In what's expected to be the largest-ever U.S. healthcare worker strike, more than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees in six states and Washington, D.C. are set to stop working for three days starting Wednesday to protest what they say are unfair working conditions and unsafe staffing levels at hundreds of hospitals and clinics across the country.
The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions—which represents 85,000 KP workers in eight unions—began its national bargaining process in April in anticipation of worker contracts expiring at the end of September. Union members are seeking across-the-board raises of between 5.75%-6.5%; KP is offering 3%. Additionally, workers want protections against subcontracting and outsourcing, better performance-sharing bonuses, an improved retiree medical plan, and unionization rights for employees of nonunion entities acquired by the KP.
In a 2022 survey of 33,000 KP employees, two-thirds of respondents said they've seen patient care delayed or denied due to short staffing during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Kaiser executives are refusing to listen to us and are bargaining in bad faith over the solutions we need to end the Kaiser short-staffing crisis," said Jessica Cruz, a licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center. "I see my patients' frustrations when I have to rush them and hurry on to my next patient."
"That's not the care I want to give," Cruz added. "We're burning ourselves out trying to do the jobs of two or three people, and our patients suffer when they can't get the care they need due to Kaiser's short-staffing."
Based in Oakland, California, KP—which operates 39 hospitals and more than 700 medical offices staffed by over 300,000 workers and serving nearly 13 million patients—is the nation's largest nonprofit healthcare provider.
According to a statement from the coalition:
Kaiser has reported $3 billion in profits in just the first six months of this year. Despite being a nonprofit organization—which means it pays no income taxes on its earnings and extremely limited property taxes—Kaiser has reported more than $24 billion in profit over the last five years. Kaiser's CEO was compensated more than $16 million in 2021, and 49 executives at Kaiser are compensated more than $1 million annually. Kaiser Permanente has investments of $113 billion in the U.S. and abroad, including in fossil fuels, casinos, for-profit prisons, alcohol companies, military weapons, and more.
Workers in California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. will take part in the strike.
KP communications manager Hilary Costa told Healthcare Dive Monday that "the best place to reach an agreement is at the bargaining table. We will ask our employees to reject any call to walk away from their jobs."
However, 30-year KP employee Maria Jostes told the outlet that while "there used to be this real collaborative problem-solving approach," over the past five or six years there's been "a culture shift from folks at the very top."
The imminent Kaiser strike comes amid a surge in U.S. labor organizing and action, including the expanding United Auto Workers strike and the Hollywood writers' strike, which ended last week with union members now voting on a tentative three-year contract.
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