Member Benefits
How to Join
En Espanol
Thousands of healthcare workers across Oregon and Southwest Washington are on the picket lines, demanding better working conditions but also fighting to uphold the foundational mission of Kaiser Permanente.
Members of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals began their five-day limited-duration strike on Oct. 14, an action that comes after months of stalled contract negotiations. OFNHP represents nearly 4,000 healthcare workers in four different bargaining units who can strike—two units of registered nurses, laboratory professionals and professional employees. The union is also part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which represents 62,000 Kaiser Permanente health professionals in 23 local unions among eight national unions. The alliance is simultaneously working on a national bargaining agreement.
Union leaders say that, despite ongoing talks, Kaiser management has made little progress on the issues that frontline caregivers say matter most.
“We’re fighting to make sure Kaiser puts patients first—healthcare should be driven by our mission, not a desire for more profits. Longer wait times for appointments and shorter times with caregivers undermine the quality of care. At Kaiser, our members provide the best care if patients can get it in a timely manner,” OFNHP President Sarina Roher says. “We want to get back to what Kaiser once stood for—a value system that puts patients first and a partnership with its caregivers.”
Roher said Kaiser needs to focus on recruiting and retaining healthcare workers so that healthcare workers are no longer told to take on more patients with less time with each, noting that uncompetitive wages are also driving talent away.
At Kaiser Sunnyside, ER nurse Mel Litts sees the fallout firsthand. “We’re the lowest paid nurses in the Portland metro area,” Litts says. “That makes it harder to recruit and retain staff.”
And when other departments are short, patients often end up in the ER. “It's not unique to Kaiser that the emergency room is a catch-all for the breakdowns or shortages in any other systems,” says Litts. “It just makes our jobs harder.”
Still, Litts says she’s proud of the union’s solidarity and is ready to return to the negotiating table. “We are ready; we are committed to meeting with them.”
Kristen Rohde, a physical therapist with Kaiser, says she felt the need to take action over frustration with how decisions are made—without input from those providing the care.
“We’ve been bargaining since March. But management refuses to meet us halfway on key issues,” says Rohde, noting that the strike is not just about wages but real partnership in shaping working conditions. She points to a Kaiser initiative that revised patient appointments.
“We did not have a fair voice in that initiative, even though we are the ones who perform the work and understand how it could be made more efficient. So we need stronger contract language to ensure that labor's voice is heard and is part of the decision-making process,” she says. “We're out here fighting for better patient care because we have been on the frontlines.”
Physician associate Josh Oppenheim, who’s been with Kaiser for four years, says one of the biggest issues is control over schedules and patient loads. “We want to voice our templates and schedules, because we do the work, and we know what's required. The change in templates means more patients and less time to actually do the work.”
A recent internal poll showed that the professional staff are working an average of four unpaid hours per week, often through lunch, just to keep up. “We're fighting for protections that prevent or reverse the burnout that's already happening. We're doing this so that we can serve patients better,” says Oppenheim. “We want Kaiser to provide the best healthcare possible. This is why we work at Kaiser.”
Nick Oberst, a medical lab scientist with 16 years at Kaiser, says the strike is also about keeping healthcare jobs secure—and stopping the creeping influence of corporate interests. “Pay hasn’t kept up with inflation. But even more concerning is the threat of outsourcing,” he says, referring to large corporations like LabCorp acquiring hospital labs. “We want successorship language in the contract—so if Kaiser sells its laboratories, they have to honor our contract.”
AFT President Randi Weingarten says Kaiser is straying from its founding mission. “Kaiser was built as a healthcare system that believed great healthcare required real partnership between management and labor—a real voice at work for the frontline caregivers,” she says. “Kaiser has abandoned that value. OFNHP members are looking to provide great healthcare in Oregon, but by every measure, Kaiser doesn’t want to even bargain for the basics.”
The strike may be limited in duration, but the message behind it is loud and clear: Kaiser workers are ready to stand up until the system works better—for them and their patients.
“We believe in the Kaiser system, and we are in a partnership with Kaiser,” says Oppenheim. But it seems that Kaiser is turning its back on that partnership, and so we are out here to get them to come to the table so that we can work in partnership.”
[Adrienne Coles]