KP NorCal RNs Plan Massive Strike

The CNA/NNU issued a 10-day notice on Nov. 10 following a near-unanimous strike authorization vote from rank and file.

More than 21,000 registered nurses and nurse practitioners at 21 Kaiser Permanente Hospitals in Northern California are planning a two-day strike on November 21 and 22 to protest what they say is the health system's "refusal to address ongoing concerns about workplace health and safety and chronic short staffing."

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United issued a 10-day notice on Nov. 10 following a near-unanimous strike authorization vote from rank and file this month.

Nurses at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center will also join the two-day strike in what the union is calling the biggest private-sector nurses strike in U.S. history.

"We always want to give our patients the best care, but Kaiser refuses to provide the resources we need to do our jobs safely," says CNA President Cathy Kennedy, RN, in the neonatal ICU unit at Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center. "We are chronically short-staffed, which means patients are waiting longer for care. This is unacceptable and unconscionable when Kaiser made more than $14 billion during the first two years of the pandemic."

The union and Kaiser have been negotiating a new contract since June but have made little headway. Among its demands, the union is calling for minimum staffing guidelines, increased hiring and training, and job protections against subcontractors and outsourcing. 

The nurses' strike would come just one month after Kaiser Permanente in NorCal came to terms with more than 2,000 mental healthcare care workers following a 10-week walkout over chronic staffing shortages and long wait times for mental health services.

Kaiser Permanente calls the strike "counterproductive and distracts everyone from reaching agreement."

At its most-recent bargaining session last week, KP says it offered NorCal nurses "higher annual raises for our nurses than we have been able to offer for decades – 21.25% in wage increases over 4 years of the contract."

"Our proposal is driven by the changing economy, including inflation, significant changes in the marketplace and our commitment to providing our employees with excellent pay and benefits," KP says.

"In bargaining in Southern California, we are actively bargaining today. We hope to reach a mutually agreeable solution that recognizes the nursing wage rates in the Los Angeles market, our current economic realities, and the inflationary environment of today."

Our nurses’ dedication to providing expert, compassionate care, especially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, has been nothing short of inspiring. We are committed to continuing to provide excellent compensation and a work environment committed to well-being, safety, and professional opportunities for our nurses.

KP's Statement

Kaiser Permanente issued the following statement in response to the strike threat.

"We have been in bargaining with the California Nurses Association (CNA) for months, and have been making steady progress towards these goals, including in a session Thursday (Nov. 10). We have already reached important agreements in bargaining on safety, diversity, and other important matters.

In Thursday's bargaining session in Northern California, we put an offer on the table, which includes higher annual raises for our nurses than we have been able to offer for decades – 21.25% in wage increases over 4 years of the contract.  Our proposal is driven by the changing economy, including inflation, significant changes in the marketplace and our commitment to providing our employees with excellent pay and benefits. In bargaining in Southern California, we are actively bargaining today (Nov. 11).  We hope to reach a mutually agreeable solution that recognizes the nursing wage rates in the Los Angeles market, our current economic realities, and the inflationary environment of today.

It is disappointing to receive a strike notice from CNA for a 2-day strike Nov. 21 and 22, as this tactic is counterproductive and distracts everyone from reaching agreement. Further, our nurses would prefer to be at the side of our patients as we once again manage through a time when flu and RSV illness are affecting so many patients and COVID-19 is still very real and sickening thousands every day.

We are committed to reaching an agreement, and do not believe there is any reason for a strike, given the many agreements we have already reached in bargaining, and the generous economic proposal we are putting on the table.

Right now, every health care provider in the nation is facing staffing shortages and fighting burnout, and Kaiser Permanente is not immune. In spite of the acute shortage of nurses in the state, our commitment to being the best place for nurses to work has enabled Kaiser Permanente Northern California to hire about 3,300 additional nurses since 2021 of which 650 were new graduates hired through our nurse residency program.

We are committed to hiring hundreds more additional nurses, in addition to the hundreds we are already bringing on board through aggressive recruitment and hiring, to provide relief for our nurses and address staffing shortages. As a result of all this work, we are proud that Kaiser Permanente has one of the lower turnover rates for nurses in health care, and we don’t take that achievement for granted.  The union’s claims of unsafe staffing levels are not correct. Kaiser Permanente meets or exceeds state-mandated staffing ratios.

Our first priority is always the care and safety of our members and patients. We have contingency plans in place to ensure patients receive the care they need in the event CNA carries out a strike.

Kaiser Permanente has a long and productive history with organized labor and we are proud of our ability to successfully reach agreements with our unions, which represent 160,000 Kaiser Permanente employees – more than any other health care organization in the nation. Labor unions have always played an important role in our efforts to give more people access to high-quality care and make care more affordable."