23 Unions Plan to Strike Together If Kaiser Fails to Address Workplace Crises

https://truthout.org/articles/23-unions-plan-to-strike-together-if-kaiser-fails-to-address-workplace-crises/

Overworked and understaffed, over 45,000 health care workers at Kaiser Permanente are poised to strike.

By Tyler Walicek , Truthout
Published October 10, 2025

“Our patients deserve the best, not mediocrity.”

This phrase has been emblazoned across graphics on the social media feeds of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP), an American Federation of Teachers affiliate, Local 5017. The roughly 6,000 health care professionals of the OFNHP are locked in a contract fight with their employer, Kaiser Permanente, the sprawling health care consortium. The mediocrity in question is not that of the staffers themselves; instead, it warns of the impending consequences for staff and patients alike of the workplace stressors to which Kaiser’s tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, technicians, and others are systematically subjected.

In what has become an extended set of pitched battles with Kaiser management, the OFNHP has set out to address some of the most severe crises in nursing and health care — at Kaiser and elsewhere. Pressure from the rank-and-file to confront chronic understaffing, stagnating pay rates, and a loss of control over their schedules and work arrangements has driven the union to place these demands at the forefront in their return to contract bargaining this year.

But their struggle is not a lonely one, and it’s far from confined to Kaiser’s Northwest branch. The OFNHP is one of the 23 unions that together make up the Alliance of Health Care Unions (AHU), a labor federation that comprises over 60,000 Kaiser workers across California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Maryland, Colorado, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. A significant portion of the Alliance membership is bargaining as a single unit, simultaneously negotiating for better wages and conditions at national and local levels. Strike action has been authorized, and the countdown has begun: If management does not return to the table by October 14, Kaiser Permanente will witness an enormous nationwide walkout of more than 40,000 employees.

The amassing strains on staff, exacerbated by the obstinate bargaining position staked out by management, have led the AHU to play its final card. Should the strike go forward, the number of participants alone would make this one of the single largest labor actions of the year. It’s telling that this year has seen a groundswell of nurses’ strikes and other health care actions — a symptom of the widespread, deeply rooted and ever-worsening issues facing U.S. hospital staff, both at Kaiser and in countless medical facilities across the nation.

FULL story at link above.