{"id":314535,"date":"2025-10-18T22:55:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T22:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/314535\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T22:55:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T22:55:12","slug":"as-kaiser-workers-strike-not-for-profit-is-sitting-on-67-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/314535\/","title":{"rendered":"As Kaiser Workers Strike, \u2018Not-for-Profit\u2019 Is Sitting on $67 Billion"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is published in partnership with the Center for Media and Democracy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Forty-five thousand workers at Kaiser Permanente\u2014ranging from nurses to therapists to pharmacists\u2014are on strike across the West Coast and Hawaii, in the country\u2019s largest labor action of 2025, and the largest strike in the U.S. since the October 2024 longshore workers strike. The five-day limited-duration strike comes as workers continue to face major short staffing<\/a> and wage increases that have lagged behind inflation in some of the country\u2019s highest-cost-of-living areas.<\/p>\n

Kaiser Permanente is an Oakland, California\u2013headquartered integrated health care giant, with 300,000 employees, and a long track record of heavy union activity. While Kaiser is ostensibly a nonprofit, it in many ways acts like a for-profit\u2014its physicians groups are for-profit entities, the Board of Directors is for the most part composed of people from the private sector, and the system\u2019s executive compensation more resembles the private sector.<\/p>\n

Kaiser CEO Greg Adams made<\/a> nearly $13 million in 2023. Kaiser spent more than $72 million on total compensation for senior executives that year, with 12 executives besides Adams making over $2 million per year, and three besides Adams making over $4 million per year.<\/p>\n

More from Matthew Cunningham-Cook<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Kaiser\u2019s care model has been celebrated for decades, and indeed, compared to UnitedHealth or the Hospital Corporation of America, Kaiser is a far better framework for health care delivery. Workers are striking not to upend the Kaiser model, they say, but to protect it against an encroaching for-profit orientation in health care and a national political environment that is utterly hostile to an ethos of patients before profits.<\/p>\n

Kaiser has claimed<\/a> that \u201cthe additional wage costs of the unions\u2019 demands would mean that more rate increases for Kaiser Permanente members and customers will be unavoidable.\u201d But Kaiser\u2019s own claims about its finances and ability to afford the cost of the strike raise questions\u2014Kaiser concedes that the unions and management are just $300 million annually apart at most in negotiations, and the company is sitting on $67.4 billion in reserves, up from $40 billion just four years ago. Kaiser recorded $5.5 billion in gains from investments, operating income, and other income in 2024, with $569 million of that in operating income.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe asked Kaiser to increase our pay by 5 percent during COVID,\u201d Liz Hernandez, a cath lab nurse at Kaiser Fontana outside of Los Angeles, told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), and Kaiser declined, saying that negotiations would need to wait until the next contract. \u201cInflation started going up. We stayed stagnant. In 2020, without hesitation, I spent $36,000 on high-quality N95 gel masks, so when Kaiser said no to increasing our pay back then it was like a slap in the face. We have sacrificed so much of our short lives for them on the front lines. It\u2019s time for us as nurses to stand firm and say, \u2018We\u2019re the ones providing high-quality care, making you look good. You are what you are because of us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Unions on strike include the United Nurses Associations of California\/Union of Health Care Professionals\u2013AFSCME (UNAC\/UHCP); the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals\u2013AFT; United Steelworkers; and UNITE HERE.<\/p>\n

Due to the size of the strike\u2014impacting<\/a> the care of as many as 12.6 million people\u2014it has garnered extensive media coverage. Yet Kaiser\u2019s claim that it will need to increase prices has gone unchallenged in the media.<\/p>\n

A CMD analysis shows:<\/p>\n