Read our editorial on the significance of strikes here.
Kaiser Permanente nurses and medical workers, 46,000 strong, went on a five-day strike from October 14 to 19 across the West Coast and Hawaii. The workers are represented by 22 unions in the Alliance of Health Care Unions, who have been negotiating for a new contract with Kaiser since May. 31,000 of the workers are represented by the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), marking the largest strike in the union’s history, and the largest strike by number of striking workers so far in 2025. Negotiations have continued as nurses and medical workers returned to work without a contract after the previous 4-year contract expired on September 30.
According to the unions, workers are demanding a 25% increase in wages over the next 4 years, as well as adequate staffing. The unions state that workers faced a real wage decrease during the previous 4-year contract as inflation grew by 18.5% while wages staggered behind with a meager 10% increase. What Kaiser now describes as a “generous” wage increase of 21.5% over the next 4 years similarly amounts to a real wage decrease when factoring in rising inflation and cost of living. A striking nurse told local monopoly media that many nurses cannot afford living expenses with Kaiser’s wages: “You’ll find that a lot of nurses, if you ask them, they’re always having some sort of side job. One job is not enough.”
Union press releases note Kaiser has played broke through the negotiations and in response to the strike despite their profits being up and having “billions in reserves”, citing a favorable Fitch Ratings report from June—which itself notes Kaiser’s monopoly domination and its status as the “largest not-for-profit organization in the country”.
Workers are demanding increased staffing as Kaiser nurses and medical workers desert the field due to hospital systems suppressing wages and driving up work tempos, according to the unions. One nurse described the understaffing on social media: “Everyday I look at row after row of empty beds […] there are no nurses to staff them. Yet patients languish in the ER, waiting for a spot.”
Workers are squeezed across industries by the imperialists seeking to recover from their economic crisis, with layoffs, tempo increases, wage cuts, and rising cost of living. This is expressed in “understaffing” by hospital systems, leading to increased staffing forming a major demand among recent medical worker struggles.
Time-bound strikes like this have recently been led by nurse unions—in Baltimore, 600 Ascension nurses went on a 24-hour strike in July, and in California, over 3,000 Tenet nurses went on strike for one day on October 30, demanding adequate staffing and guaranteed break times. As negotiations continue between Kaiser and the unions, nurses and medical workers on social media state that they are “ready to strike again,” and that they “must hit the picket lines again as soon as possible with full strength.”
Image: Alliance of Health Care Unions members on the picket line against Kaiser in undated photo; UNAC/UHCP photo.
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