February 6, 2026
Update on Alliance local bargaining
Kaiser Permanente provides comprehensive contract proposals to each of the 53 local tables.
This message from Greg Holmes, executive vice president and chief human resources officer, was sent to Alliance-represented employees on Friday, February 6.
In my last communication, I shared our decision to address open topics of bargaining with the Alliance of Health Care Unions at local bargaining tables. Since then, we have contacted each local union and requested their availability to meet and bargain. Unfortunately, we have heard back from very few with proposed bargaining dates. We have provided each of the 53 local tables with comprehensive contract proposals and again requested bargaining dates to move this process forward.
Each comprehensive proposal includes the tentative agreements that have been reached at the national table and at each of the respective local tables. We want to assure you that the National Agreement will still be honored. This approach moves the issues that could not be resolved at the national table to local tables for resolution, allowing us the opportunity to reach comprehensive local agreements.
Our offer in local bargaining
Our current wage offer coming into local bargaining tables is the strongest contract proposal in our national bargaining history — one that would keep our Alliance-represented employees among the best-paid care providers in the country. The total pay increase we are offering, including step increases, amounts to on average roughly 30% over the length of the contract, not including proposed benefits enhancements. This is far above the wage increases unions recently agreed to in contract negotiations with University of California and with Sharp HealthCare.
To help you understand what this could mean for you, use the online KP wage offer estimator tool to get a personalized estimate of your potential hourly pay increase based on our current offer, including across-the-board wage increases and local adjustments. Please be sure to read the disclaimers before using the tool.
Strikes are not helping us reach agreement
At this point, Alliance employees have lost 4 months of the wage increases represented in our offer — and UNAC/UHCP employees participating in this union’s open-ended strike can add the loss of their existing wages for each week they continue striking. We hope our UFCW local union-represented employees in Southern California will consider these financial impacts and our patients and choose not to participate in their planned open-ended strike scheduled to begin on Monday, February 9. Despite these unions’ focus on strikes, we are focused on reaching sustainable agreements that reward our employees while keeping high-quality care affordable for our members.
Local bargaining with UNAC/UHCP
UNAC/UHCP is bargaining all issues at the local table for the registered nurses bargaining unit in Southern California, which represents over 22,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses. Bargaining has resumed at all UNAC local tables.
We are at the local table to bargain in good faith. Unfortunately, there still has been no progress on the major economic issues. In fact, UNAC/UHCP put forward a proposal that includes wage increases, wage scale adjustments, and step increases for nurses that would amount cumulatively to a 63% average pay hike over the life of this contract.
UNAC/UHCP is fully aware that this proposal is far above what we can responsibly agree to — doing so would make health care less affordable for our members and have broad financial implications for costs in all markets.
We remain committed to reaching agreement at local tables
The move to local bargaining gives us the opportunity to continue negotiating in good faith at each table to reach tentative agreements that union members can vote to ratify without the need to wait for agreements at other tables.
We look forward to these negotiations, and to reaching agreements with your local union as soon as possible. It’s time for you to start receiving the generous wage increases and enhanced benefits you’ve earned.
