More than 31,000 union nurses and hospital staff sent a strike notice to Kaiser Permanente on Friday indicating their intent to walk off their jobs with the Oakland-based healthcare system on Oct. 14.
The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals said it would be their largest strike against Kaiser, with tens of thousands of nurses and healthcare professionals striking at two dozen hospitals and clinics across California and Hawaii.
A Kaiser Permanente spokesman could not immediately comment on the union’s notification to strike.
By law, healthcare unions must give employers at least 10 days notice before a strike in order to ensure continuity of patient care and allow hospitals to prepare.
The union is seeking higher wages, better benefits and hiring more employees to fill staffing shortages, Charmaine Morales, president of UNAC/UHCP, said in a statement.
“This strike is about protecting patients as much as it is about protecting caregivers,” Morales said. “Kaiser executives cannot keep expanding while ignoring the crisis inside their hospitals. Our message is clear: invest in the people who provide care, or face the consequences of a workforce that refuses to stay silent.”
Members of the Alliance of Health Care Unions will join picket lines in California, Hawaii and Oregon. The Alliance includes 62,000 union members working at Kaiser nationwide. The contracts of 46,000 of these Kaiser workers expired Sept. 30 or Oct. 1, and nearly all of their local unions have given Kaiser 10-day strike notices.
The vast majority of union members work in California, where one in four residents receive care from Kaiser.
The decision to strike comes after six months of bargaining for UNAC/UHCP, which represents registered nurses and healthcare professionals in the two states. The union is negotiating to replace a five-year contract that expired Sept. 30.
The union said that higher wages are needed to keep up with inflation and stem the tide of workers leaving Kaiser for better pay at specialty clinics or to become traveling nurses. The higher wages are needed to recruit, retain and maintain current staffing levels, according to the union.