Unionized health care workers began a historic five-day, multi-state strike outside Kaiser Permanente hospitals on Tuesday morning, demanding safer staffing and better pay and benefits — an action that Kaiser called “unnecessary” and “disruptive.”
In the Bay Area, members of the United Nurse Association of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP) marched outside Kaiser’s main hospital in Oakland, where about 300 people were on the picket line at 7 a.m., according to union spokesman Aaron Gallant. Elsewhere in the region and Northern California, strikes were taking place in Santa Clara and Roseville.
Similar actions were planned at a total of about 20 Kaiser locations statewide, most in Southern California, and others are planned in Hawaii and Oregon later in the week…