The second day of the largest health care strike in U.S. history is winding down, but executives across the Kaiser Permanente health system seem no closer to providing employees with a contract that meets their demands. That 75,000 workers under eight unions walked out at Kaiser impacts not just the largest non-profit health system in the industry, but the industry as a whole.

While strikes are always last resorts, health care strikes “affects access to quality of care, which is a life-and-death issue for the population,” says Patricia Pittman, director of the Health Workforce Research Center at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. “Trust is important between patients and families and clinicians, and between clinicians and administrators. A strike is a manifestation of the loss of that trust and the sense that there is very little shared interest.”

Workers are striking, in large part, because of understaffing, which they argue is causing a dangerous decline in the quality of patient care. In looking to save money, they say, Kaiser has harmed patients as well as employees. Their concerns reflect those of health care employees nationwide in recent years, says Pittman, meaning that the resolution of the Kaiser strike (or lack thereof) might inform how other organizations move forward.

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