A union representing about 3,000 pharmacy and lab workers is threatening to join Kaiser Permanente nurses and other health care workers in the nation’s largest health care strike.
About 31,000 employees represented by the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals walked off the job in California and Hawaii on Jan. 26 over contract talks that began in May 2025.
Another 3,000 workers represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers in Southern California will join the Kaiser strike on Monday to protest company communications intended to “discourage and divide the workforce rather than meaningfully negotiate,” the union said Friday.
The nurses assert the conflict is about wages, workplace safety and short staffing.
Kaiser contends union demands for wage increases, scale adjustments and step increases would be “unsustainable.”
The company said it has proposed to raise its annual payroll by $1 billion, while the union wants $3 billion, which “would make health care less affordable for members, with broad implications for costs in all markets.”
The union said Kaiser Permanente has more than $66 billion in unrestricted reserves.
National bargaining has been stalled since Kaiser management walked away from talks in December, the union said.
“Kaiser has ghosted us,” Geraldine Doronio, a certified registered nurse anesthetist at Kaiser Moanalua and member of the national bargaining team, said in a statement.
A company spokeswoman said the strike is “unnecessary, disruptive for our members and patients, and counterproductive to reaching a contract agreement.”