Widespread Kaiser Strike Ends After 4 Weeks With No Full Deal Yet

A four-week strike by thousands of Kaiser Permanente health care workers in California and Hawaii ended Tuesday morning, even though no full contract deal has been reached.

The walkout initially involved up to 31,000 nurses, physician assistants, physical therapists, optometrists and others. Following significant movement at the bargaining table over the weekend, according to the union, no picket lines were held Monday as return-to-work agreements were finalized.

“We decided to end this because we were making meaningful progress at the tables. And returning to work allows us to closely deal with the issues, the few that are still outstanding, while getting back to taking care of our patients,” said Elizabeth Hawkins, secretary of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals.

Nurses and other health care workers who walked picket lines several days a week are now expected to return to clinics and hospitals as early as Tuesday.

In a statement, Kaiser, which hired contingency staffers during the strike, said it was working to schedule returning employees over the coming days.

The Oakland-based health care organization said union leadership recently accepted an across-the-board 21.5% wage increase over four years that Kaiser had offered since October 2025. The union sought a 25% raise.

“We have remained committed to reaching agreements that recognize the vital contributions of our employees while ensuring excellent, affordable care for our members,” Kaiser’s statement said. “Importantly, the increase is higher than any other health care provider in the country and keeps our employees at above market pay and among the best paid caregivers in the country.”

As the strike dragged on, the nation’s largest private nonprofit health care organization drew a hard line, maintaining that anything higher than a 21.5% raise would be unsustainable and lead it to increase premiums for its more than 9 million customers in California. The union said it acquiesced on wages because Kaiser agreed to additional improvements in safe staffing, recruitment and retention.

Both parties have been focused on completing contracts for each of dozens of local units forming UNAC/UHCP, Hawkins said. Kaiser walked away from bargaining on a long-standing national contract in December, a move the union calls unlawful and said partly led to the strike.

Pressure had been mounting on both parties to end the walkout, which began Jan. 26 and was dubbed the largest open-ended strike by nurses and other health care workers in the U.S. Top priorities in negotiations for Kaiser employees have been staffing levels and compensation, common concerns for health care workers nationwide.

The company reassigned non-picketing staffers, rescheduled non-urgent surgeries and modified other appointments at affected locations. But some patients were frustrated by delays in their operations, especially in Southern California, where most striking union members are located.

At the picket lines, several workers told KQED they were financially and emotionally stressed by forgoing their paychecks for weeks, as the union did not offer assistance via a strike fund.

Last week, Kaiser said about 40% of nurses and pharmacists across striking locations had returned to their jobs, though union officials countered that those figures were inflated.

“While they will keep negotiating, they are losing leverage by going back to work, which suggests that they didn’t feel they had the capacity to sustain the strike any longer,” said Rebecca Givan, an associate professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University who specializes in the health care industry. “This is a tough outcome for these workers.”

Givan contrasted the outcome in California and Hawaii with a weeks-long strike by about 15,000 nurses in New York City, which led to significant employer concessions, including maintenance of health care benefits and improvements to pay and staffing, before workers agreed to return to their jobs.

Michelle Baird, a nurse midwife at Kaiser Oakland, said she would have preferred to end the strike with a contract deal in hand, but she’s cautiously optimistic about what’s left of the bargaining progress.

“Kaiser really saw how united we were and how strong we were, and even though we don’t have a contract in place now, I believe that my employer is negotiating in good faith and has been at the bargaining table,” said Baird, 53. ”I’m definitely feeling more like there’s a good chance of getting the things that we need in a contract, even if we don’t get everything we want.”

Baird said she was looking forward to seeing patients and regaining her income. She’s nervous about the strain that the long strike could have on her relationships with co-workers who pitched in more hours to continue caring for patients. Still, she feels the strike will likely lead to improvements for patients.

“Even with the disruptions in patient care, if we have a solid contract, we’ll have much more staff continuity. We’ll have people who are dedicated to being there, it will decrease the risks of turnover. And I think in the long run, it’s better for patients,” she said.

Hawkins, the UNAC/UHCP secretary, said the union had not held a walkout at Kaiser for about 45 years prior to last year, when two much shorter strikes were held.

Labor experts said the company had a shining reputation as an employer with positive labor relations, but the recent walkout suggested a turning point for Kaiser, which has expanded to eight states and the District of Columbia.

Kaiser, which has dismissed employee claims of chronic understaffing and long delays for patients, said its health care workers are already paid on average more than those at other companies.

Health care workers in California often earn more money than in other states, which labor experts say is due to the state’s high cost of living and unionization in the industry. Registered nurses, for example, make an annual mean of $113,200 in California, significantly higher than the national mean of $77,500, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.