Oakland, California - More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers are set to walk off the job on Wednesday in the largest health-care strike in American history!

Workers in California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington state are launching a three-day strike as they battle with their employer Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest non-profit health care networks, after contract negotiations stalled on Tuesday.

In Washington DC and Virginia, hundreds of pharmacists and optometrists are joining the action in a one-day walkout.

Workers have been fighting for safe staffing, higher wages, and expanded benefits as their previous four-year contract expired on September 30.

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The current contract negotiations come as the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions says that staffing levels and working conditions have taken a severe hit during the coronavirus pandemic, when health care workers' services were all the more essential.

Kaiser Permanente brought in $3 billion in profits in the first half of 2023 and more than $24 billion over the last five years.