Thousands of SoCal Kaiser Pharmacy and Lab Workers to Begin Unfair Labor Practice Strike Feb. 9

LOS ANGELES – United Food and Commercial Workers or UFCW Southern California locals representing Kaiser Permanente pharmacy and laboratory employees Jan. 29 delivered a 10-day Unfair Labor Practice or ULP strike notice to Kaiser Permanente executives. The ULP strike is set to begin Feb. 9 at Kaiser facilities throughout Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, and Kern Counties, to protest Kaiser’s labor violations throughout negotiations that have prevented frontline healthcare workers from getting the fair contract they deserve. Picketing will take place at select Kaiser medical centers throughout the region.

UFCW Kaiser employees will launch their ULP strike to raise their concerns at the same time as 31,000 Nurses and Healthcare Professionals with UNAC/UHCP are out on their own ULP strike, which started Jan. 26.

Negotiations have been stalled for more than a month after Kaiser management walked away from the bargaining table. In December, UFCW 770 and other unions with the Alliance of Healthcare Unions filed Unfair Labor Practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging Kaiser unlawfully refused to bargain in an attempt to bypass the agreed-upon national bargaining process and interfere with good-faith negotiations that had been ongoing since April 2025.

“Our message to Kaiser is clear: we will not be silenced,” said Zhayne Serang, a Clinical Laboratory Scientist at the Anaheim Medical Center. “After repeated unfair labor practices, KP lab employees are ULP striking because Kaiser has continually refused to bargain in good faith. They need to stop delaying, stop focusing on union-busting tactics meant to divide us, and get back to negotiating a fair contract.” 

“We are fed up with being overworked, disrespected, undervalued, and with Kaiser’s illegal attempts to intimidate us out of getting a fair contract,” said Angelica Muro, a pharmacy technician at Kaiser Permanente in West Los Angeles. “When workers are punished for speaking up about safety and workload, patients pay the price through longer waits and delayed prescriptions. Kaiser’s actions don’t just violate labor law, they violate the trust our patients place in us every day.”

UFCW 770 previously issued a 10-day ULP strike notice on Jan. 26 for select pharmacy employees that was set to begin on Feb. 3. They have since retracted their 10-day notice in order to align with a larger wave of thousands of UFCW Kaiser employees who will be starting their ULP strike on Feb. 9.