Kaiser employees to return to work following weekslong strike

(CN) — More than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and health care professionals will return to the job Tuesday, following four weeks of striking for better wages and working conditions.

The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals union, one of the largest health care professional unions in California and Hawaii, announced Monday it had sent Kaiser a notice of unconditional return to work following “significant movement at the bargaining table.” 

"Returning members to their patients and livelihoods is the clearest path to securing a final agreement and building on the progress achieved during the strike," The union said, calling the weekslong work stoppage the "largest open-ended strike of registered nurses and health care professionals in United States history."

The strike will officially end on Tuesday at 7 a.m. Bargaining will continue.

In a statement to Courthouse News, the union said that the return to work is "not the end of the campaign to win an agreement that protects patients."

"The strike succeeded in bringing the employer back to serious negotiations, and returning to work allows us to continue closing remaining issues while members get back to caring for patients and serving our communities," it said.

"We are continuing to bargain until each agreement is fully complete and ready to be presented to our members," the union added.

In contrast, Kaiser Permanente called the strike "entirely unnecessary" and said the wage increases the union demanded were unreasonable given rising health care costs.

"We have remained committed to reaching agreements that recognize the vital contributions of our employees while ensuring excellent, affordable care for our members," it said in a statement.

The union has been in negotiations with Kaiser since March 2025 over key issues like staffing shortages and wage increases. Thousands of nurses, midwives, physician’s assistants, acupuncturists and other health care professionals walked off the job on Jan. 26 in an effort to get Kaiser back to the bargaining table, UNAC/UHCP union leaders said, after negotiations fell apart on Dec. 14.

“These negotiations come at a time when health care costs are rising, and millions of Americans are at risk of losing access to health coverage,” Kaiser officials said in a Jan. 25 statement. “This underscores our responsibility to deliver fair, competitive pay for employees while protecting access and affordability for our members.”

Union representatives also cited higher wages as a reason for striking, claiming understaffing impacts patient safety and quality of care. 

“As staffing levels drop and positions go unfilled, remaining nurses and clinicians are forced to take on dangerously high workloads, stretching care teams beyond safe limits and increasing the risk of errors and delayed treatment,” union leaders said in a Feb. 3 statement. “Hospital leadership has ignored repeated warnings for years, creating burnout and driving experienced professionals out of the workforce.”

During the strike, employees picketed at large and small Kaiser locations across California and Hawaii, including in Los Angeles, Bakersfield, San Bernadino and San Diego.

At the Oakland Medical Center picket line on Feb. 3, Jeff Cathcart, a certified registered nurse anesthetist who has worked for Kaiser for 21 years, told Courthouse News that Kaiser offered the same proposal it had following an October strike when it met with union members the weekend before the current strike began.

He said the 21.5% pay increase over four years that has widely been reported as one of the largest wage bumps in Kaiser history wasn’t initially offered to UNAC/UHCP members in Northern California, because the union is only two years old.  

“That 21.5% is on the table, but it’s completely offset by massive cuts to our pension, massive cuts to our health care,” he said.

Since the October strike, union members have demanded a 25% pay increase with a four-year contract.

UNAC/UHCP is part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which bargains at a national level, and has around 62,000 members.

Silas Patlove, a physician’s assistant in emergency medicine, also at the Feb. 3 Oakland picket line, said the PAs in the union have been stuck at the bargaining table since August or September, and theorized that Kaiser’s new leadership was attempting to union-bust.

“Kaiser has not returned meaningful proposals,” he said. “Kaiser is trying to stop bargaining at the national agreement level as well and return everything to local tables, in an attempt to divide the Alliance.”

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