31,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers to strike in California, Hawaii
An estimated 31,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and health care professionals in California and Hawaii will go on strike Monday, calling for fair wages and more staffing, according to a news release from the workers union.
United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals is asking for safer staffing, as it says short staffing is causing “dangerous delays in care” and a higher risk of errors; fairer wages; and retirement and benefits security. Picketing locations in Northern California include Roseville Medical Center, Oakland Medical Center and Santa Clara Medical Center.
While the strike involves about 31,000 nurses and health care professionals across the two states, only about 2,800 union members in Northern California are expected to walk off the job, according to Kaiser. Those workers include nurse anesthetists, certified nurse midwives, therapists and physician assistants, among others covered by the union.
Kaiser Permanente Northern California said in a statement on its website that hospitals, medical offices and pharmacies would remain open during a strike and that people would be contacted if nonurgent appointments and elective surgeries needed to be rescheduled.
“Our facilities will be staffed by physicians, experienced managers, and trained staff, with added licensed contract professionals as needed,” Lionel Sims, senior vice president of human resources for Kaiser Permanente Northern California said in a statement to The Bee. “We’re onboarding nurses, clinicians, and other staff to work during the strike, the majority of whom have worked at Kaiser Permanente before.”
Sims said local bargaining is continuing and that they have proposed 21.5% wage increases.
“We hope our UNAC/UHCP union-represented employees will choose not to strike so we can resolve our differences at the bargaining table and remain focused on providing exceptional care to our members and patients,” Sims said in the statement. “The strike is designed to disrupt the lives of our patients — the very people we are all here to serve.”
The union’s President Charmaine S. Morales said in the release their members were not striking “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,” Morales said.
The union has been bargaining with Kaiser Permanente since May, but negotiations stalled after Kaiser management left the table in December, the union said.
The union filed an unfair labor practice charge in December at the National Labor Relations Board alleging Kaiser Permanente is attempting to bypass the bargaining process and interfere with good-faith negotiations.
The strike will continue until an agreement is reached, the union’s release said.
This story was originally published January 25, 2026 at 10:09 AM.
