Roughly 19,000 Bay Area Kaiser Permanente workers have joined tens of thousands of their colleagues around the country on the picket lines in what their union is calling the nation’s largest ever health care worker strike.

Started at 6 a.m. on Wednesday, 75,000 members of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and aligned unions walked off the job in five states and Washington, D.C., after negotiators failed to reach a last-minute contract agreement.

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Kiley Russell writes primarily for Local News Matters on issues related to equity and the environment. A Bay Area native, he has lived most of his life in Oakland. He studied journalism at San Francisco State University, worked for the Associated Press and the former Contra Costa Times, among other outlets. He has covered everything from state legislatures, local governments, federal and state courts, crime, growth and development, political campaigns of various stripes, wildfires and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.