"Progress With Purpose"

Charmaine’s leadership has helped UNAC/UHCP secure unprecedented wins, grow stronger, more united, and better prepared to fight for the future of healthcare professionals and the patients we serve.

Growing Our Union

  • Added 11,000+ new union members across the union, surpassing our goal of 40,000 members
  • Welcomed new units—1 in Hawaii, 3 in NorCal, and 3 in SoCal
  • Added Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists and Acupuncturists—giving us broader representation

Contract Wins

  • Secured historic wage increases
  • Preserved all benefits and pensions
  • Won contract language ensuring no more free riders at Sharp Healthcare

Unprecedented Contract Wins: the First, Best, and Highest

Paradise Valley Registered Nurses Association: Negotiated the highest wage increases ever: 23% increase in the first year of the CBA, with an average three-year overall contractual increase of 29%.
Beverly Hospital Registered Nurses Association: Negotiated the highest wage increases ever: 24.5% overall wage increases over the four-year contract
Garden Grove Registered Nurses Association: Negotiated the highest wage increases ever and the first of its kind: Prime facility wage grid and step movement recognizing years of experience
Chino Valley Registered Nurses Association: Negotiated the highest wage increase ever: An average overall increase of 18% over the three-year contract and a new wage grid with step movement each year of the three-year contract
United Nurses and Health Care Employees of Hawaii: Achieved historic bargaining victory: Hawaii's strongest contractually mandated nurse-to-patient ratios
St. Francis Registered Nurses Association: Negotiated historic wage correction and a new wage progression system: First post-bankruptcy bargaining
Sharp Professional Nurses Network: Negotiated the first full union security clause: Strengthening the union by ensuring that everyone who benefits under the contract meet their obligations to support the union. [SPNN has been fighting to achieve this for over two decades.]
Kaiser Registered Nurses Association Medical Professionals (Bluebook): Achieved historic staffing protection: First-of-its-kind regional internal registry, a staffing task force, stronger RNC review of staffing/workload, and clearer rules for which nurses count toward ratios
Kaiser Permanente (all affiliates and chapters): Negotiated the highest wage increases ever.

Mobilizing Members

  • Thousands voted for and participated in our historic strikes
  • Thousands joined information meetings and town halls during bargaining
  • Historic ratification votes with unprecedented participation and support
  • Over 25 Town Halls, briefings, and Q&A sessions during bargaining, attended by thousands of members

Amplifying Our Voices

  • Successfully combatted Kaiser's multi-million dollar PR messaging machine with our Profits Over Patients report, highlighting their hypocrisy and wrongdoing
  • Gained national and local media attention—over 1,400 media stories
  • Increased our presence within the broader labor movement

Historic Strikes

  • 2023: Five-day St. Francis Medical Center Strike (First UNAC/UHCP strike at St. Francis)
  • 2024: Three-day Unfair Labor Practice Strike at Maui Health Systems (First UNAC/UHCP strike at Maui Health Systems)
  • 2025: First strike against Sharp Healthcare
  • 2025: First UNAC/UHCP strike against Kaiser Permanente in decades
  • 2026: The largest open-ended strike of registered nurses and healthcare professionals in U.S. history

Strategic Strike Preparation

The most significant in our union's history

  • Multiple trainings for affiliate leaders and bargaining teams
  • Federal Mediation and Conciliation Training
  • Repurposed Union Leadership Conference for bargaining preparation
  • Strike Schools
  • Trained our members to speak to the media

According to Nurse.org's Strike analysis, UNAC/UHCP:

  • Led the two highest-impact nursing strikes in the United States since 2017
  • The 2026 Kaiser Permanente open-ended strike ranked as the most impactful nursing strike in Nurse.org's database of 107 nurse strikes between 2017–2026
  • The 2025 UNAC/UHCP five-day strike ranked second
  • The 2025 UNAC/UHCP three-day strike ranked eighth

The Strike Impact Score combines four verifiable facts about each strike: the number of nurses involved, how long it lasted, how many hospitals were affected, and how many states it reached. Every figure is checked against a primary source.

These rankings underscore UNAC/UHCP's leadership in preparation and the ability to organize large-scale, high-impact collective actions that advance safe staffing, strengthen the nursing profession, and elevate patient care.

Legislation

  • Filed lawsuits against the federal government to protect collective bargaining rights for Balboa Naval Medical Center and Pettis Memorial VA Loma Linda. We've already won back our rights for Pettis!
  • Successfully championed legislation strengthening California's nurse-to-patient staffing enforcement (SB 596)
  • Helped pass legislation expanding affordable nursing education (AB 1577)
  • Currently supporting legislation recognizing pregnancy as a qualifying life event for health insurance enrollment (AB 2066)

Infrastructure With Vision

  • Held our first-ever Gubernatorial Forum. No other union of our size has done this
  • Began an annual Presidents' Summit to enhance communication and solidarity
  • Implemented the VMO (Volunteer Member Organizer) program, which organizes externally and mobilizes internally—held our first VMO conference in May
  • Created and grew our first-ever CAT (Contract Action Team), keeping our members informed, engaged, and ready to act
  • Expanded the MMA (Membership Matters Academy) to develop and strengthen union leaders who will shape our future
  • Achieved more autonomy and increased our ability to ensure more accountability within NUHHCE

Member Voices

Testimonials are being added as members share their experiences.

Because every accomplishment belongs to the members who made it possible.

Because Every Member Matters

Together, we can continue building a stronger, more united, and more powerful UNAC/UHCP.

Thoughts, Questions, Ideas?

Charmaine wants to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, ideas, or what matters most to you.

Contact Charmaine