More than 30,000 registered nurses and healthcare professionals across California and Hawai’i began an Unfair Labor Practice strike against Kaiser Permanente on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. Organized alongside the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), workers gathered at the picket lines to demand safe staffing levels, timely access to quality care, fair wages and a [fair] chance at the bargaining table.
The strike followed an earlier walkout in October 2025, after UNAC/UHCP’s contract with Kaiser expired the previous month. Union members argue that Kaiser failed to uphold its obligations to both caregivers and patients, prioritizing expansion projects over frontline care. The Kaiser Permanente Riverside Medical Center is undergoing an expansion to increase its bed capacity through the construction of a 5-level expansion. The project includes a new lobby, an emergency department replacement, expansions to its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and a new parking structure.
At the Riverside picket line, Monica Martinez, a registered nurse in general surgery, pointed out the construction site as she criticized Kaiser’s investments in for-profit ventures instead of addressing urgent patient care needs. “We’re fed up with the current healthcare system,” Martinez said. “We are here day in, day out to protect our patients, to provide quality care. Where we are seeing corruption, we are seeing fraud.”
Martinez also reflected on the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2019, and the toll it took on healthcare workers. “We lived through a pandemic where these people called us heroes. We risked our lives to be there for our patients,” she said. “I’ve worked for [Kaiser] for 20 years. I’m so proud to be a Kaiser nurse because of my brothers and sisters here on the line. What I’m ashamed of is now we no longer have a partnership that we can respect.”
UNAC/UHCP represents a wide range of frontline healthcare workers across various departments in Kaiser, including registered nurses, pharmacists, nurse anesthetists, nurse practitioners and other specialty health care workers. In response to the strike announcement, Kaiser released a statement sharing “Your care and well-being remain central to everything we do. Thank you for your understanding, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
As the strike continues, union leaders say patient safety and staffing conditions remain at risk without meaningful changes at the bargaining table. While Kaiser maintains that patient care remains its top priority, nurses say the outcome of this strike will determine whether that commitment translates into action — or remains a corporate talking point.
