Kaiser Permanente employees, joined by Union members representing the employees, walk the picket line in Los Angeles, California on October 4, 2023.Â
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images
Tens of hundreds of Kaiser Permanente employees remained on strike Thursday for a second day over a short-staffing crisis at health facilities.
A spokesperson for the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions said that the strike — which it called the biggest health-care employee walkout in U.S. history — will proceed until Saturday morning at the most recent because the group waits for “a meaningful response from Kaiser executives” to its demands.
There are currently no bargaining sessions scheduled with Kaiser, said the spokesperson, Caroline Lucas.
Greater than 75,000 employees went on strike Wednesday at lots of of Kaiser Permanente health facilities in California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Oregon, Virginia and Washington state.
Nearly 60,000 of those employees are in California.
Kaiser Permanente employees within the District of Columbia and Virginia went on strike for at some point and returned to work Thursday, however the strike will proceed in the opposite 4 states through Saturday morning “barring any dramatic motion from Kaiser executives to deal with the short staffing crisis,” Lucas said.
Operations, chemotherapy treatments and other “non-urgent” procedures were postponed Wednesday because of the strike, NBC News reported.
Kaiser Permanente has said all hospitals and emergency departments will remain open throughout the work stoppage, but elective procedures can have to be postponed.
Kaiser Permanente is the biggest private, nonprofit health-care organization within the U.S.
It serves nearly 13 million patients and operates 39 hospitals and greater than 600 medical offices across eight states and the District of Columbia.
