Kaiser Permanente and unions near agreement after historic strike

Kaiser Permanente’s frontline health care workers unions reached a tentative deal with the company today after the nation’s largest recorded medical sector strike.

Disputes over staffing levels and pay sparked a 72-hour strike that began Oct. 4 with 75,000 nurses, medical technicians and support staff walking off the job. The workers returned to their jobs on Saturday. Kaiser’s hospitals and clinics serve nearly 13 million people.

“We are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with the frontline health care workers of the @UnionCoalition this morning,” Kaiser Permanente said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions which represents the workers struck for three days in California — where most of Kaiser’s facilities are located — as well as in Colorado, Oregon and Washington state. The coalition had given the company notice that another strike from Nov. 1 to Nov. 8 was possible and the Oct. 31 expiration of a contract covering the Seattle area would enable another 3,000 workers to join picket lines.

Unions representing Kaiser workers in August asked for a $25 hourly minimum wage, as well as increases of 7% each year in the first two years and 6.25% each year in the two years afterward.

Kaiser, which turned a $2.1 billion profit for the quarter, said in a statement last week that it proposed minimum hourly wages between $21 and $23 depending on the location. The company said it also completed hiring 10,000 more people, adding to the 51,000 workers the hospital system has brought on board since 2022.

The workers’ last contract was negotiated in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. That four-year contract expired on Sept. 30.

The largest number of workers previously involved in a major work stoppage in the health care sector was 53,000 in 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.