Nurses dig into rainy day funds to keep Kaiser strike going

Striking nurses at Kaiser Permanente wrapped up their first week of picketing on Friday — tired but still energized as they wait for a second wave of workers to join them in February.

Sarah Rubino, a registered nurse who works at Kaiser’s Irvine Medical Center, joined about 150 others on the picket line at the corner of Sand Canyon Avenue and Alton Parkway. Amid the megaphone chants and horns honking from supporters, she said she’s prepared for another week with some help from her rainy day fund.

“I began working extra hours after the last strike, taking extra shifts to cover shortages in our postpartum unit,” said Rubino of last October’s walkout. She has a 7-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl. “Christmas was less that year. It looked different.”

The union of 31,000 registered nurses and health professionals doesn’t have a strike fund to keep them going forever, so nurses are tapping their savings, cutting back on extras, like dining out, or going down to one car in a household for commuting.

“All of our health care professionals have been working extra or picking up part-time jobs just so that we can get a fair contract,” said Rubino.

Alice Hunter, a 62-year-old nurse who in the virtual medical center at Kaiser’s Anaheim Medical Center, has a rainy day fund of $5,000. She also helps support her 28-year-old son, who’s attending Saddleback College in Mission Viejo and just began courses to become a nurse.

“I’m just watching my budget and groceries. I’ve cut back with inflation,” said Hunter, a Rancho Santa Margarita resident.

The strike by members of the United Nurses Association of California/Union of Health Care Professionals union started Monday, Jan. 26, and is open-ended, keeping 31,000 registered nurses and staff in California and Hawaii off their jobs until the health care giant and the union alliance reach a tentative contract agreement.

The two sides are negotiating to replace a five-year contract that expired Sept. 30. The union is seeking higher wages and benefits, plus more hiring to fill staffing shortages. It initially sought a 38% pay hike over four years and is now seeking a 25% raise.

Kaiser said in a statement Friday that it “stands with nurses and patients during union strikes.”

“Our contract proposal is the strongest compensation package in Kaiser Permanente’s national bargaining history and keeps employees among the best-paid caregivers in the country,” said Camille Applin-Jones, senior vice president for Kaiser Permanente Southern California. “The total pay increase we are offering, including step increases, amounts to roughly 30% over the length of the contract, not including proposed benefits enhancements.”

Last October’s five-day strike, the largest ever for Kaiser unions, began with the health care giant flying in thousands of replacement staff from around the country to fill critical patient care jobs. Pay for those temporary workers ranged from $78-$130 an hour based on the job requirements, according to interviews with nurses who said they were retained by AMN Healthcare Services Inc., a Dallas-based temporary strike staffing company.

Kaiser has declined to discuss staffing issues in this latest work stoppage.

Changes coming to California

Regardless of how the strike turns out, Laurel Lucia, deputy executive director for the Labor Center at UC Berkeley, said the health care industry in California is staring at considerable changes to its business landscape.

A year ago, she published a report looking at possible cuts in Medi-Cal funding in 2026—a prediction that ultimately came to pass with the “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025. That legislation cut Medi-Cal— California’s Medicaid program —providing free or low-cost comprehensive coverage to low-income residents, including families, children, seniors and people with disabilities.

Before the bill was made law, Lucia expected a loss of $10 billion to $20 billion in federal Medi-Cal funding to CaliCalifornia — auction that she said in an interview with the Southern California News Group would hurt Kaiser financially.

Also see: Pomona Valley Hospital plans 265 job cuts

Of Kaiser’s 9.5 million members in California, the health care provider has 1.1 million Medi-Cal membmember —nearly of its statewide membership base.

“These federal cuts not only threaten health care access for many of the nearly 15 millmillion — or out of three Californians currently enrolled — they also lead to significant job loss in health care and other sectors, given that health care is a key part of California’s economy, and Medi-Cal is a key pillar in California’s health care system,” she said.

She estimated a loss of between 109,000 and 217,000 jobs in California.

“There is already a problem with sufficient staffing, and will that get worse if workers don’t have the wages and benefits they need to provide for their families?” Lucia wondered.

“”It’s difficult to predict how long the strike will last, but it’s clear that every day the strike continues, Kaiser will pay financially, and they will be taking that into account,” she said. “I also think that the longer the strike goes, the more reputational risks there are for Kaiser, because nurses and other healthcare workers are deeply valued by patients, and a strike, especially a long strike, clearly signals that they’re not getting what they need.”

Second wave

The second wave of strikes against Kaiser is beginning to take shape.

More than 3,000 pharmacy and lab workers with the United Food and Commercial Workers union in Southern California said Thursday that they would join the strike beginning Feb. 9 — unless an accord is reached.

“We’ve had a broken health care system for a long, long time,” said Kathy Finn, president of UFCW Local 770, which represents parts of Los Angeles, Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. “They call themselves a nonprofit, but their goal, just like any other huge corporation, is to bring in a lot of money and premiums and then scrimp on what they give out in care. They don’t act any different from any other big corporation.”

Also see: Kaiser laying off 216 workers, deepening tensions amid nurses’ labor talks

Until the strike is settled, union nurses with Kaiser will cut back on spending as they venture into week two.

Gerard Corros, president of the Kaiser Orange County Professional Association, who’s overseeing the interests of 2,800 nurses and others at the bargaining table, plans to park his gas-guzzling pickup truck at home and drive his fuel-efficient Honda Accord instead.

He’ll do penny-pinching where he can, but rely on his disability pension as a Marine veteran who deployed to Iraq in 2009, and his wife’s income as an underwriting manager at a local credit union.

“We’re cutting out restaurants,” said Corros, who is in the strike for the long-haul. “We have decided that they are making priorities in profits over patients in the commmunity that we serve.”