MedCity News January 23, 2026
About 31,000 Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers plan to launch an open-ended strike over staffing shortages, wages and care access issues — potentially affecting dozens of hospitals and hundreds of clinics in California and Hawaii. While Kaiser blames unions for stalled negotiations, workers say the conflict reflects deeper concerns about patient safety, burnout and health systems’ shifting priorities.
Roughly 31,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and other healthcare professionals are planning to launch an open-ended strike starting on Monday.
Their main grievances are chronic understaffing, rising workloads and concerns that Kaiser’s wage and contract proposals fail to address cost-of-living pressures.
The workers going on strike are represented mainly by the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP). Their strike will...
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