This week marked a critical moment in our fight for a fair national contract with Kaiser Permanente. As members of the Alliance of Healthcare Unions—which represents over 60,000 healthcare professionals across the country, including our own OFNHP members—we have been at the table demanding what we all know is necessary: safe staffing, fair wages, and a real voice on the job.
At Thursday night's rally, we showed just how powerful we are. Hundreds of OFNHP members and allies packed Terry Schrunk Plaza in downtown Portland for a historic demonstration in support of healthcare workers and the patients we serve. We were joined by an incredible lineup of speakers, including AFT National President Randi Weingarten, OFNHP President Sarina Roher, State Representative Travis Nelson, Oregon AFL-CIO President Graham Trainor, and other labor and community leaders. People flocked from around our community, including city councilors Mitch Green and Angelita Morillo and State Representative Rob Nosse. Our message was clear: when healthcare workers stand together, we can win the future our patients and communities deserve.
This latest round of national bargaining was one of the most substantial—and grueling—of the entire campaign. We opened by confronting Kaiser’s recent pullback from an agreement that would have protected workers and patients in the event of a sale, a move that raised serious questions about whether Kaiser will stand by our community in the future. On Tuesday, as bargaining began, Alliance Executive Director Hal Ruddick addressed this head-on while a sea of OFNHP members, wearing red and holding signs, called Kaiser's priorities into question.
From there, we moved into subgroup negotiating sessions, where we saw unprecedented member participation as observers. That presence changed the dynamic at the table, showing Kaiser just how united and determined we are in our demands for real change. Below are summaries of the Tentative Agreements (TAs) brought forward from each subgroup and approved by the CIC:
Economics
We made progress this week in the Economic Subgroup but remain far apart on our key economic priorities: national across-the-board wage increases, movement on local table economics, and alignment on contract expiration dates.
The Economic Subgroup met on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For the first time since national bargaining began, Kaiser provided a comprehensive economic counterproposal on all outstanding proposals. Over the course of the week, Kaiser increased its wage offer to 6.5% in 2025, 6% in 2026, 4% in 2027, and 3% in 2028, for a total increase of 19.5% over four years.
On Friday, the Alliance made a counteroffer of 14.5% in 2025, 6.5% in 2026, 4% in 2027, and 4% in 2028, for a total increase of 29%. Alliance leaders continue to emphasize to Kaiser the lack of movement at local tables and the importance of raising wages to keep up with inflation, recent contract settlements, and staffing demands. We also offered a package on educational benefits that would move us toward providing enhanced educational funding for all members, regardless of job classification.
On Thursday, the CIC formalized several tentative agreements coming out of the Economic Subgroup that enhance retiree medical benefits and eliminate out-of-pocket costs for allergy injections and durable medical equipment.
Staffing and Patient Care
We made headway on tools that could help address the staffing crisis, including a universal dashboard in every market, new toolkits for staffing committees, an escalation process for implementation issues, and national criteria for hard-to-fill jobs. These changes create more transparency and accountability, but they don’t fix unsafe staffing overnight. The new language in the TAs they reached will provide committee oversight and implementation, educational materials and job aids for labor’s involvement in the annual staffing/budgeting process. The work isn’t finished, but this week’s progress from the subgroup will have a meaningful impact. We’ll need to keep fighting until these tools are fully implemented and every shift has the staffing it needs.
Partnership Effectiveness
This week, the Partnership Effectiveness Subgroup finalized several recommendations focused on providing additional support and accountability to UBTs, Sponsors, and UBT support teams; implementing and communicating Just Culture training; evaluating LMP Learning programs; and creating a process to develop a tool for measuring partnership effectiveness above the UBT level.
The goal of these recommendations is to ensure that Partnership is part of the daily work and experience of frontline workers—not just a box to check.
Unfortunately, after extensive discussions with management, we were unable to secure any concrete recommendations on UBT meeting times. Labor ended the conversation when it became clear that management was unwilling to make any real commitments.
AI and Technology
After a great deal of work, the AI Subgroup finalized two Tentative Agreements for the CIC. The first establishes a national task force on AI and technology, and the second strengthens protocols for Unit-Based Teams to provide feedback up the chain on technology and innovation. Both initiatives are designed to bring labor’s voice into the process early and ensure our input is valued during new technology implementation and after.
Reaching this point took hard work and difficult conversations, but the subgroup landed on agreements that address many of our shared interests. Still, important issues remain unresolved—most notably the need to incorporate ethical frameworks on AI and technology into our National Agreement. Labor believes this should be achievable, given KP’s own PROTECT framework and other models already developed in academia. We will reconvene in two weeks to continue moving this critical work forward.
The bottom line is that this agreement puts worker voice, transparency, and patient care front and center in Kaiser’s technology rollout. This is exactly what we needed to establish a foundation to push for even stronger protections ahead.
Click Here to Read The Tentative Agreements in Full
The next steps are to continue on at our local tables and push for Kaiser to finally make needed agreements. We have added multiple new local bargaining dates for our six bargaining units, so make sure to sign up to observe. We also want to raise the profile of our open letter to Greg Adams demanding justice, so make sure to click here and add your name.
And, more than anything, be ready to show up, talk with your coworkers, and speak out about the issues that matter most. As we move deeper into this process, we must show Kaiser that we’re ready to do whatever it takes to win a strong agreement for our members and the patients we serve.