LOS ANGELES – More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers in multiple states – including many OPEIU members -- will go on strike on Wednesday to protest unfair labor practices and unsafe staffing levels at hundreds of Kaiser hospitals and facilities across the United States. The strike, which is expected to last for three days, will be the largest health care worker strike in U.S. history.
Healthcare workers are taking the work action to protest Kaiser executives’ bad faith bargaining, which is getting in the way of finding solutions to solve the Kaiser short-staffing crisis by investing in its workforce.
"Kaiser executives are refusing to listen to us and are bargaining in bad faith over the solutions we need to end the Kaiser short-staffing crisis," said Jessica Cruz, a licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center. "I see my patients’ frustrations when I have to rush them and hurry on to my next patient. That’s not the care I want to give. We’re burning ourselves out trying to do the jobs of two or three people, and our patients suffer when they can't get the care they need due to Kaiser's short-staffing."
Strike lines will be set up at Kaiser Permanente hospitals and medical office buildings across the country, including California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.