Kaiser’s Labor Strife Points to Wider Health-Care Understaffing

Kaiser Permanente will restart labor talks Thursday after more than 75,000 workers completed the largest health-care strike in the nation’s history, with one major point of contention continuing to be systemic staffing shortages that have plagued the industry as a whole.

The collective bargaining discussions come amid ongoing labor unrest in the health sector, which has accounted for a third of strikes involving more than 1,000 workers since the beginning of 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This year alone, worker protests have included union and non-union walkouts by hospital nurses, as well as pharmacists for CVS Health ...