California’s Striking Kaiser Workers, Without Pay for Weeks, Feel the Financial Pressure

For the last month, Chris Pyper and his partner, a fellow Kaiser Permanente physician assistant, have gone without paychecks while walking picket lines outside the nonprofit health care giant’s facilities in Oakland, Santa Clara and south Sacramento.

The couple is surviving on savings, but they’re not sure how much longer they can forgo both of their incomes and still pay the mortgage for the Oakland home they recently bought.

“There’s a lot of pressure,” said Pyper, 39, as rain drenched him and dozens of picketers outside Kaiser’s Oakland Medical Center this week. “It’s a sacrifice. Hoping that this is going to produce a good contract. And I’m willing to stay out as long as we need to get a fair contract.”

As an estimated tens of thousands of Kaiser health care employees stretch their open-ended strike in California and Hawaii into a fourth week, several told KQED they worry about how they’ll afford rent, student loan payments, child care expenses and other bills if the union and employer fail to reach a deal soon.

Their union, which led two much shorter walkouts at Kaiser last fall, is not offering financial assistance for the nurses, physician assistants, physical therapists, pharmacists and others relinquishing wages to strike. Some said they are dipping into retirement accounts, increasing credit card debt or considering part-time jobs elsewhere to make ends meet.

Yet, even with dwindling or depleted savings accounts, the strikers said they remain determined to hold the line for their livelihoods and job improvements they hope will benefit patients.

“I am constantly in this state of low-grade panic,” said Michelle Baird, a nurse midwife who has delivered babies and cared for mothers since 2015 at Kaiser facilities in Oakland, Berkeley and Pinole. “I really am good at not sounding or looking panicked because the work I do needs calmness, but I don’t feel calm at all.”

A self-described pessimist, the 53-year-old steeled herself early for the possibility that Kaiser could take months to make significant concessions in bargaining. In preparation, Baird worked as many shifts as she could before she and up to 31,000 health care professionals walked off their jobs on Jan. 26.

Now, Baird said her household in Berkeley has already canceled subscriptions, stopped online shopping and quit eating out at restaurants. She hopes she won’t have to borrow against her daughter’s college fund and is looking for a job that she could add to her schedule, even after the walkout ends.

“Really, it’s just tightening the belt, pinching pennies and worrying a lot,” said Baird, who added that her top priorities have been ensuring fair pay and keeping affordable health care benefits when she eventually retires.

‘They’ve forgotten the health care workers’

The employees want Kaiser, the nation’s largest private nonprofit health care organization, to invest more revenues in its workforce and allow more worker input on staffing and scheduling, which they said would decrease wait times for patients and improve care. The company has largely dismissed claims of chronic understaffing or deteriorating services, and it said anything more than its offer for a 21.5% wage increase over four years would be unsustainable and force it to increase premiums for customers.

Kaiser, which has expanded operations to eight states and the District of Columbia, made a net income of $9.3 billion last year, driven largely by investment gains, and nearly $13 billion in 2024, while holding reserves estimated at $66 billion or more. The Oakland-based company contends its reserves should pay for pensions, building maintenance and other long-term financial commitments, as well as serve as a rainy day fund.

But employees on the picket line doubt that argument. Pyper, who works in the orthopedic surgery department in San Leandro, said Kaiser has pushed hard to cut the retirement, health care and other benefits of newer union members like himself, leaving him no choice but to strike.

“Kaiser is sitting on a lot of money they’ve made over the past few years,” said Pyper, who is paying monthly for student loans. “They’re expanding in the other states, and it just kind of feels like they’ve forgotten the health care workers who are doing a lot of the patient care.”

In a statement, Kaiser said its employees “deserve a fair contract that reflects their value.” The company, which stopped bargaining on a long-standing national contract including big-ticket issues such as across-the-board wage increases, said it’s making progress with the smaller, local units forming the United Nurses Association of California/Union of Healthcare Professionals.

“Once we reach agreement at each of these respective local tables on the open issues from the national table, we will be ready to close each agreement and get the contracts signed,” Kaiser’s statement said.

Kaiser has asked a federal court to declare it is not obligated to negotiate a national deal with UNAC/UHCP. The company argues that the union broke contractual commitments to work collaboratively, including by issuing a report last month alleging that Kaiser prioritizes profits over patient care and invests in private prison companies that run immigration detention centers. Kaiser also said the union withheld information it needed to reduce disruptions to patient care during the current strike.

UNAC/UHCP has called Kaiser’s move to walk away from months of national bargaining unlawful, and it opposes the company’s proposal to shift all of its bargaining to dozens of local units. Executive secretary Elizabeth Hawkins said the union is considering its options to resolve issues related to staffing levels, workflow and patient access that have left some Kaiser patients waiting months to get specialty medical care.

“We’ve been looking at multiple avenues to settle this strike,” said Hawkins, a former registered nurse at Kaiser for 31 years. “It’s a very fluid, dynamic process that we’re going through. And right now, I’m not prepared to speculate on how this is going to unfold.”

This month, Kaiser agreed to pay $31 million to resolve federal investigations over long wait times and other problems for millions of California patients seeking mental health and substance use care. The deal comes two years after the company settled with the state for $200 million over similar issues. Kaiser therapists in Northern California with a separate union are about to finish voting on whether to authorize a one-day strike.

Problems mount as strike persists

Meanwhile, pressure is growing on Kaiser and UNAC/UHCP to compromise as the current walkout drags on.

Kaiser said more employees are crossing picket lines and returning to work, including more than 40% of nurses and pharmacists across striking locations. Hawkins called those figures inflated, adding that most members plan to keep withholding their labor as long as necessary.

Kaiser, which is likely spending millions of dollars on contingency workers to help cover staffing shortages left by striking workers, faces criticism from patients reporting delayed surgeries and treatments due to the labor conflict. Physicians and other employees continuing to work inside hospitals and clinics have also been left picking up the slack for weeks.

Maggie Burtch, a nurse midwife in Antioch and Walnut Creek, said that in addition to the financial stress her family faces to pay for their mortgage and child care, she’s concerned the long walkout will strain her relationships with obstetrics physicians and other co-workers who are not on strike and continue to attend to patients.

“This has been really tough on our OB team, who also have kids at home, and I hear they’re working double the hours that they normally work to cover us, and that doesn’t feel great,” said Burtch, 41, the mother of two young children. “So I’m really worried about what that’s going to feel like when we reenter. What are the vibes going to be? I’m worried it’s going to feel different.”

Still, Burtch believes walking off her job was the right choice. She’s been frustrated by the pace of negotiations and disappointed by what she described as Kaiser’s hard-line stance during the strike and negotiations with midwives, who unionized to maintain their benefits.

“It’s really made me rethink whether or not this is the place that I want to continue to work, even though I love what I do,” said Burtch, who lives in Oakland. “But it’s hard to work a job where you just feel so undervalued.”

Being away from patients also pains Brianca Hutchins, a pediatric occupational therapist who helps rehabilitate children with disabilities and special needs.

The 32-year-old, who often refers to her patients as “kiddos,” said wait times for patients at Kaiser are a top concern. She has been stretched thin trying to see up to 11 patients with complex medical histories per shift, and communicate with their families and providers to follow up on their care.

“We are drowning time-wise,” said Hutchins of her team at Kaiser San José. “We really want support with workload and staffing.”

After all this time on picket lines, she appreciates getting to know other workers from different departments on strike, sharing camaraderie and mutual support. But her stress is ramping up, she said.

“I’m not sleeping. My anxiety is through the roof,” Hutchins said. “Now that we’re in week four, the guilt for leaving my patients is in full swing. And then money-wise, I finally looked at my bank account and cried.”