About 4,000 nurses and skilled medical professionals at Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Oregon and Southwest Washington are on strike this week.

It’s part of a national five-day strike by close to 45,000 workers over wages and other contract disputes at Kaiser hospitals and clinics in Oregon, Washington, California and Hawaii.

Those on strike make up a significant share of Kaiser’s workforce in the Pacific Northwest. They include nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, psychologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, nurse midwives and lab professionals, among others.

Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Debbie Karman said its hospitals, medical and dental offices and pharmacies in Oregon and Southwest Washington will remain open during the strike, with support from managers, Kaiser workers who have volunteered for temporary assignments and about 600 contract staff.

Some appointments and surgeries, however, are being rescheduled. Kaiser is reaching out directly to affected patients. Patients who have appointments or need emergency care shouldn’t hesitate to cross the picket line, according to the union and Kaiser.

The workers on strike include four different units represented by the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. The local chapter is part of a larger alliance of 23 Kaiser unions that bargain together for a national contract. The alliance provides an across-the-board wage increase, while leaving room for adjustments in local contracts.

In its latest proposals, the alliance is seeking a 25% across-the-board wage increase over four years, while Kaiser is offering 21.5% as its proposal.

In a prepared statement, Kaiser Director of Public Relations Debbie Karman called the union’s position out of step with economic realities, and said the company’s offer will increase payroll by nearly $2 billion by 2029.

“Anything beyond 21.5% will require us to further increase rates for our members and customers at a time when health care costs are increasingly unaffordable,” she wrote.

The union, meanwhile, said wages for its members haven’t kept pace with Kaiser’s competitors and are driving burnout and short staffing.

Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals spokesman Shane Burley disputed Kaiser’s claim that it cannot afford the wage increase nurses and other workers are seeking, pointing to the nonprofit’s executive compensation and recent moves to expand into new markets, such as Pennsylvania.

“I don’t think it’s their lack of income that’s stopping them from offering fair wages, I think it’s their priorities,” he said.

Karman said Kaiser pays its workers in the alliance 16% above the market rate, on average. She declined to provide the specific market benchmarks that the claim is based on, saying only that Kaiser works with reputable third-party industry organizations for its wage data.

One of the bargaining units in the Northwest participating in the work stoppage said they are being paid well below market rates. That group is pushing for a much larger wage increase than what is in discussion at the national level.

Kaiser nurses are currently paid 22-28% below the market rate in the Pacific Northwest, according to a summary of the negotiations posted online by the bargaining unit for registered nurses in Oregon and Washington.

As a result in local negotiations, the unit is seeking an additional wage increase of 27% in the first year of the contract, known as a market adjustment, on top of the 25% across-the-board increase the national alliance is seeking.

Numbers typically move toward the middle in the bargaining process, but if the nurses in Oregon and Washington win the full increase they are seeking, it would mean a more than 50% total increase in wages over the four-year life of the contract.

Kaiser has counter-offered a much smaller one-time market adjustment for the Oregon and Washington nurses. Kaiser’s market adjustment offer, combined with the across-the-board wage increases being bargained at the national level, would amount to a 27% total increase in wages over the four years, Karman said.

Nurses in Oregon have the highest hourly wages in the country when adjusted for the state’s cost of living, according to federal data published in Becker’s Hospital Review, an industry publication. Washington has the fourth-highest hourly wages for nurses when adjusted for cost of living.

Nurses in Oregon make $120,470 annually on average, according to Becker’s. In Washington, the average annual wage is $115,740.

Other disputes between Kaiser and its workers include protections for laboratory scientists and the union in the event that Kaiser sells off any of its lab services, as well as limits on when traveling workers can be brought in to fill short-staffed shifts.

Kaiser and its union have reached tentative agreements on some previously contentious issues, including how artificial intelligence will be implemented in the health system.

This story may be updated.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/14/northwest-kaiser-nurses-wage-increase-four-year-contract/