OFNHP nurses and other health professionals at Kaiser facilities vote to authorize a strike

PORTLAND, Ore.—Nurses and other health professionals at Kaiser Permanente facilities throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington voted overwhelmingly to authorize their union—the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals—to call a strike, union officials said today.

Over 96 percent of OFNHP members voted to authorize a strike.

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 (such as social workers, cancer counselors, audiologists, physical therapists and mental health therapists). OFNHP members work at Sunnyside Medical Center east of Portland and Westside Medical Center west of Portland, along with ambulatory surgical centers and medical and dental clinics along the I-5 corridor from Longview, Wash., to Eugene, Ore. Their contracts expires on Sept. 30.

Since March 2025, Kaiser has been unwilling to seriously address the main concerns of the healthcare workers, OFNHP President Sarina Roher said, and if short staffing continues, patient care will suffer. She said Kaiser needs to recruit and retain healthcare workers, noting other hospitals around the state have approved contracts that attract workers because of superior pay.

“Cutting frontline care costs is a choice—a choice that’s not in the patients’ best interest. Our choice is for Kaiser to go back to the days when it worked collaboratively in partnership with its workers on creating high-quality workplace conditions and decisions that put patients first,” Roher said. “The experts who provide the care must shape the care plans; that’s how patients thrive. Healthcare decisions belong in the hands of those who deliver the care, not those who balance the books.”

The vote authorizes OFNHP leaders to give Kaiser 10 days’ notice before a strike commences, any time after Sept. 30.

“We will continue to bargain in good faith, hoping that we can reach an agreement that is fair and respectful for healthcare workers and best for our patients,” Roher said.

OFNHP, an affiliate of the AFT, is 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 that would be an addendum to each local’s contract. The contracts of 52,000 Kaiser Permanente workers—nurses, therapists, technicians, lab staff, service and technical workers, and other professionals—expire on Sept. 30 or Oct. 1. To date, unions representing 46,000 workers have voted to authorize strikes in Oregon, Washington state, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.