Kaiser workers gear up for five-day strike; Sharp nurses to picket

Kaiser Permanente patients with appointments next week are on notice that a wide range of medical professionals plan to stage a five-day strike, starting at 7 a.m. Tuesday. And labor friction at Sharp HealthCare, and potentially UC San Diego Health, indicates that this fall is shaping up to be a season of labor unrest.

Kaiser has not said publicly exactly how its members are likely to be affected by the work stoppage, which involves 31,000 workers in California and Hawaii who are members of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals. The combined group, according to previous statements, includes “registered nurses, pharmacists, nurse anesthetists, nurse practitioners, midwives, physician assistants, rehab therapists, speech language pathologists, dietitians, and other specialty health care professionals.”

As they cannot just cease operation during strikes, medical providers, especially those operating full-service hospitals as Kaiser does, must bring in replacement workers to keep critical services running when regular employees do not report for their shifts. Nonemergency services, such as scheduled operations and procedures, are often rescheduled to lessen the overall workload during multiday pickets. Kaiser did not respond on Friday when asked how much care it will have to delay during the walkout.

“We take any threat to services seriously, and our patients remain our priority,” Kaiser said in a statement Friday. “If a strike occurs, our hospitals and medical offices will stay open with robust plans to ensure care.”

The union’s stated reasons for this disruption are “stagnant wages and unsafe staffing,” with an organizer indicating Friday that wages in the bargaining unit’s previous contract did not keep up with inflation.

Sharp nurses also saw their contract lapse on Sept. 30, with the group of 5,700 workers announcing three days of “informational pickets” Wednesday through Friday. Nurses are represented by the Sharp Professional Nurses Network, which is an affiliate of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, the same group staging the Kaiser strike. The Sharp demonstration is not a strike, meaning that workers are picketing on their own time but are not walking off their jobs.

And there are clear concerns that labor tension may be brewing between the California Nurses Association and the University of California. The university’s Office of the President issued a public statement last week stating that it has offered the statewide labor group, which represents 24,000 nurses, an across-the-board wage increase of 27% over five years. That contract expires Oct. 31.

Kaiser’s most recent update on bargaining activities, posted Oct. 4, states that the medical provider has offered workers a total wage increase of 21.5% spread across four years, with increases of 6.5% in 2025 and 2026, 5.5% in 2027 and 3% in 2028. Kaiser says the pay of workers headed out on strike is “on average 16% above market.”

Kaiser says that its offer of a 21.5% pay increase would increase its cumulative payroll by $2 billion by 2029.

But workers clearly think a better deal can be had, with multiple reports stating they seek a cumulative raise of 25% over four years. Statements have referenced Kaiser’s financial reserves. A recent bond rating report lists the organization’s “unrestricted cash and investments exceeded $66 billion” in 2024.

Nate Poliakoff, a Kaiser registered nurse in the emergency department at Kaiser’s San Diego Medical Center in Kearny Mesa and a local union leader, said that he and his colleagues are dissatisfied with staffing levels in addition to pay.

“The staff have submitted well over 1,000 documented staffing concerns that do tie into patient safety,” Poliakoff said.

Working within the system through formal communications with management, he said, failed to address those concerns. Likewise, a union official said in an email Friday that previous pay increases in the union’s previous contract have not kept pace with inflation.

“We’ve been advocating, but right now, we have the ability to apply a little more leverage so that we can get Kaiser to see that they’re on the wrong path,” Poliakoff said.

Kaiser called concerns about staffing and quality inaccurate, stating that it continues to hire new workers, its health plans are “the only ones in the state to earn 5-star ratings from the California Office of the Patient Advocate,” and 38 of its hospitals have been named “high performing” by U.S. News and World Report. 

It is often difficult for the public to understand issues such as wages at a private company such as Kaiser, and existing union contracts are not a matter of public record. However, the staffing site Indeed.com lists the average Kaiser registered nursing salary at $71.14 per hour or about $127,000 per year. The site lists an average of $65.54 per hour for Sharp HealthCare. Kaiser said that for a nurse currently earning $77.34 per hour, its proposed 21.5% increase would bump hourly compensation to $101.69 by the end of the contract.