More than 30,000 striking Kaiser Permanente nurses and other health care workers will go back to work Tuesday following a four-week strike, according to union officials.
There’s no contract deal yet and negotiations between the health care giant and the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals will continue following the strike, which involved workers at two dozen or so hospitals and clinics in California and Hawaii.
The strike was called off after the two sides made “significant movement” during negotiations over the past two days, union officials said Monday.
Contract talks have been happening since March 2025, with the union asking for better wages, workplace safety improvements and solutions to what it says is a short staffing problem in many departments.
Kaiser officials have said that union demands for wage increases, scale adjustments and step increases would be “unsustainable.”
The company said it has proposed to raise its annual payroll by $1 billion, while the union wants $3 billion, which “would make health care less affordable for members, with broad implications for costs in all markets.”
Union leaders didn’t specify what issues the two sides have made progress on.
On strike 4 weeks itl take 3 years to recoup lost wages vs what they ended up with.
$ weeks and still no contract … they’ve lost wages they’ll never get back and they’ll be striking again soon … I’ve posted on this several times – they need a concrete deal or this will perpetuate and members will always be short on wages