Thousands walk out in Kaiser strike

This story initially appeared on KQED.

A months-long labor dispute over staffing and compensation at Kaiser Permanente escalated into an indefinite strike beginning Monday, threatening to disrupt operations at dozens of hospitals and clinics in California and Hawaii.

Hundreds of nurses, physiotherapists, midwives and different well being professionals voted in favor quit their jobs days and even weeks of strain on California’s largest personal employer to provide in to prime union calls for at a time when the business is dealing with monetary headwinds.

The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Well being Care Professionals, which represents about 31,000 workers, accuses Kaiser of compressing affected person care and staffing for income because it expanded into different states — an allegation the nonprofit denies and claims it’s assembly all staffing and security necessities.

Picketers stated Monday morning outdoors Kaiser’s Oakland Medical Middle, close to the employer’s headquarters, that wages ought to maintain tempo with inflation and the price of dwelling after accepting smaller raises through the pandemic. Many additionally took half in a bigger one five-day strike in a number of states in October as a part of the Alliance of Healthcare Unions and a one-day strike in September.

“We’re combating for our livelihoods, we’re combating for affected person care,” stated Jessica Servin, a nurse anesthetist in San Francisco. She stated sufferers face lengthy ready lists for appointments and surgical procedures and wrestle to obtain obligatory care in a well timed method.

“I believed their values ​​and their mission,” stated Servin, who joined Kaiser as a nurse almost 20 years in the past. “It seems like they’re deviating from the inspiration round which Kaiser was constructed. It feels slightly unhappy to be right here and understand that Kaiser is selecting income over sufferers.”

Kaiser stated its well being care staff earn extra on common than these at different employers and rejected claims that the standard of affected person care is in danger, pointing to a turnover fee that the group says is far decrease than the remainder of the business. Executives stated they try to strike a steadiness between controlling rising payroll prices and preserving care reasonably priced for the greater than 12 million folks Kaiser serves, most of whom are in California.

“These negotiations come at a time when well being care prices are rising and thousands and thousands of Individuals are liable to shedding entry to well being care,” Lionel Sims, senior vp of human assets at Kaiser Northern California, stated in a press release. “This underscores our duty to supply honest, aggressive compensation for workers whereas defending entry and affordability for our members. We do each.”

Hospitals, emergency rooms, pharmacies and virtually all medical places of work will stay open through the strike, whereas sufferers shall be contacted prematurely if their care is affected, Kaiser stated. The employer plans to reschedule plenty of operations and different procedures.

Disruptions might be higher in Southern California, dwelling to about 28,000 UNAC/UHCP members, who make up the overwhelming majority. The union represents simply 2,800 members in Northern California, together with doctor assistants and speech therapists, and 200 in Hawaii.

For months, the union has sought a 25% pay improve over a four-year contract, however administration stood by its provide to extend wages by 21.5%, calling it the strongest compensation package deal in Kaiser’s nationwide bargaining historical past. For the reason that strike in October, the employer stated it has reached tentative agreements with different Alliance unions, strengthening staffing and scheduling.

“It’s disheartening that UNAC/UHCP leaders proceed to speak about enhancing healthcare, when this strike and their actions in current months are actually solely about increased wages,” Sims stated.

‘Delayed appointments, postponed operations’

Based in 1945 in Oakland, Kaiser employs greater than 180,000 folks in 9 states and the District of Columbia. As a nonprofit well being care and well being care supplier, Kaiser stated it reinvests its revenues in working and enhancing its hospitals, clinics and neighborhood applications, with an emphasis on preventive medication.

The corporate recovered from a internet lack of about $4.5 billion in 2022 to optimistic internet revenue from operations and investments in later years, posting almost $13 billion in 2024 and $8 billion within the first three quarters of 2025, in keeping with its most up-to-date monetary outcomes.

This month, the U.S. Justice Division introduced that Kaiser was keen to pay $556 million to settle allegations that it deceived Medicare into rising reimbursements by pressuring medical doctors in California and Colorado to alter medical data and add diagnoses after affected person visits.

UNAC/UHCP chief negotiator Brian Mason stated the corporate needs to chop pension and well being care advantages for newer union members, which might offset increased wages. He stated administration has additionally refused to barter proposals that might enable workers to provide sufferers the care and time they want, though Kaiser disputes that.

“No one needs to go to an appointment whenever you’re sick and really feel such as you’re being rushed as a result of your supplier has to get to the subsequent affected person and the subsequent,” Mason stated. “This strike is meant to make sure that affected person care stays one of the best it may be and that Kaiser doesn’t proceed on this path of monetary lies, treating the healthcare business like a hedge fund.”

Sanne Jacobsen, a nurse anesthetist in Oakland, says suppliers are overbooked and may’t schedule calls. She stated the corporate is struggling to recruit and retain workers.

“It is postponed appointments, postponed surgical procedures … and in locations just like the clinics the place persons are getting bodily remedy, these bodily therapists do not have sufficient time to truly deal with the sufferers correctly,” Jacobsen stated.

Staffing ranges and wages have turn out to be prime considerations for healthcare staff because the business has more and more consolidated and govt salaries have soared, in keeping with labor consultants.

Greater than 15,000 nurses in three main hospitals in… New York went on strike this month, leaving tons of of others in Grand Blanc, Michigan, on the picket line in freezing temperatures. In keeping with the web site, nurses in 5 different states are threatening strikes nurse.org.

Hospital mentions financial uncertainty

One consider Kaiser’s reluctance to pay further payroll prices is an unsure monetary forecast underneath the Trump administration, stated John Logan, chairman of the labor and employment research program at San Francisco State College. Federal insurance policies which can be anticipated to extend the variety of uninsured Individuals might influence Kaiser’s backside line.

“Kaiser administration needs to provide itself as a lot flexibility as potential and keep away from making concrete, enforceable commitments to the union on staffing and dealing situations that it believes shall be an enormous burden in that altering atmosphere,” Logan stated.

The union factors to Kaiser’s $66 billion in reserves as proof that it may well afford higher staffing and advantages, although the corporate says the funds are supposed for long-term liabilities reminiscent of pensions and constructing upkeep, not ongoing wage will increase.

Nonetheless, front-line staff need executives to speculate a higher share of the nonprofit’s monetary income into staffing and affected person care, stated Rebecca Givan, an affiliate professor on the Faculty of Administration and Labor Relations at Rutgers College.

“It is clearly the case that Kaiser is raking in some huge cash it doesn’t matter what,” Givan stated. “It has very well-paid executives, and Kaiser’s leaders are making decisions about the place to speculate their cash. And these frontline staff consider there needs to be one thing extra on the entrance strains and never elsewhere.”

Jacobsen, a member of the union’s bargaining workforce, stated the corporate’s negotiating habits felt like “an funding financial institution masquerading as a well being care group.”

“For them to say they cannot afford to pay us honest wages? I feel we all know the place the greed is,” she stated on the picket line on Monday. “It isn’t right here on the road. It is approach up there in the principle workplace.”

Nationwide negotiations that started in Could had been paused by Kaiser final month after executives stated the union threatened to launch incriminating details about the corporate. The union then printed a report about Kaiser’s financials, together with linking the employer’s investments to Geo Group and CoreCivic, personal jail corporations that additionally run many immigration detention facilities. Kaiser labeled the findings a “assortment of misrepresentations.”

This weekend, Kaiser and the union met for negotiations, however staff stated they weren’t productive and the strike will proceed. The employer stated it’s onboarding nurses, medical doctors and different employees to work through the strike, and reassigning some workers to work at strike places.

KQEDs Katie DeBenedetti contributed to this report.