Kaiser Permanente, California’s largest health provider, was bracing for a major labor strike of its health care workers Tuesday across the Bay Area and throughout the state.

Barring a late-hour breakthrough in negotiations, passers-by can expect to see picket lines outside of Kaiser hospitals in Oakland and Santa Clara starting Tuesday morning, when 2,800 health professionals in Northern California plan to stop work to seek higher pay and staffing improvements.

The strike will kick off at 7 a.m. on Tuesday at the Oakland Medical Center — less than a mile from the health giant’s corporate headquarters — and at the Santa Clara Medical Center. It’s slated to end at 7 p.m. on Sunday. The strike could end early if the two sides reach an agreement.

Pharmacists, midwives and other health professionals at the Kaiser hospitals would participate in the strike. All told, up to 46,000 Kaiser workers in California, Oregon and Hawaii could strike, according to the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals labor union.

Kaiser told patients not to cancel appointments, but it may reschedule some appointments including elective surgeries. Hospitals, medical offices and pharmacies will stay open. In total, Kaiser plans to bring on 7,600 staff temporarily. Patients should wait to be contacted about appointment changes, the Monday message to patients said.

Union representatives said they’re fighting for raises, pay equity and to protect workers from staffing shortages and burnout. In months of negotiations, Kaiser “has not agreed to a contract that delivers on the core priorities of the frontline health care professionals who make Kaiser work every day,” the union wrote on its website.

“A strike is always a last resort, reached only after every other option has been exhausted,” the union wrote.

Kaiser claimed the union rejected its offer to raise pay by more than 20% over a four-year period, after union negotiators initially sought a 38% raise. Kaiser’s proposed 21.5% raise would cost nearly $2 billion by 2029, a spokesperson said in an email. The nonprofit health provider and insurer reported in August net income of $3.3 billion in the second quarter of 2025, up from $2 billion in the second quarter of 2024.

“We’ll continue bargaining in good faith with the Alliance and will work to reach an agreement before a strike occurs,” Kaiser wrote in a message to patients on Monday.

Russell Miller, a spokesperson for the labor union, referred Bay Area News Group to statements on its website that call Kaiser’s pay offer unsatisfactory because of historic, post-pandemic inflation that drove up living costs for workers.

“Kaiser keeps pumping out emails and PR spin, trying to convince you that this strike isn’t necessary, and that their offer is ‘strong,’” the union wrote online to its members. “Their consultants specialize in manufacturing psychological strategies designed to make you feel satisfied — even grateful — with less than you deserve.”

UNAC/UHCP Executive Director Joe Guzynski said the union is currently seeking a 25% increase, and he expressed hope that the two parties would be able to bridge the gap.

“This is an area where we should be able to resolve,” he said.

Bargaining between the labor union and Kaiser ended on Oct. 10.

The strike Tuesday would be the second local Kaiser strike in about a month’s time. In September, about 600 Northern California midwives and nurse anesthetists stopped work and headed to picket lines for a one-day strike over understaffing and burnout. Strikers boycotted every Kaiser facility in Northern California, with the biggest demonstrations in Oakland and Roseville. The strike was part of separate negotiations from the major work stoppage planned Tuesday. They will be striking Tuesday as well.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit health system Sutter Health announced a tentative contract agreement Saturday with unionized workers, averting a potential strike in the Bay Area and Northern California. About 4,000 workers with SEIU United Healthcare Workers were set to strike in Oakland, Berkeley, Vallejo and elsewhere. Union officials had negotiated for staffing shortages and working conditions and said they won what they’d been seeking.