The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP) represents more than 35,000 registered nurses and health care professionals in California and Hawaii. UNAC/UHCP grew out of a dream: Health care professionals representing health care professionals, guided by transparent, accessible, and democratic governance. UNAC/UHCP empowers health care professionals, improves the quality of care, and provides economic and professional advancement.
UNAC/UHCP has transformed and helped redesign health care delivery in California and Hawaii for more than fifty years. Our contracts set standards for wages, benefits, working conditions and participation in patient care decisions. Our union has a strong commitment to giving back to our communities. We are a collective voice to advocate in our hospital, in our neighborhoods, in the legislature, and anywhere we need to be. Our ability to improve community health doesn’t start when we clock in or stop when we clock out. It’s who we are.
We are UNAC/UHCP and we believe everyone deserves a chance to live a full, healthy life. We hope you’ll join us on this journey, one patient at a time.
Our Professions. Our Patients. Our Future.
Historic investment in nursing workforce infrastructure: The UNAC/UHCP-backed legislation to build the pipeline of future registered nurses in California has been signed into law. The Higher Education Budget Trailer Bill contains $300 million dollars spread over five years—$60 million per year—to expand nursing programs and BSN partnerships in community colleges amid an acute national shortage of frontline bedside nurses. This is the largest workforce infrastructure investment in the country.
Baby boom RNs have hit retirement age while nurses at every stage of their careers are quitting in record numbers due to burnout, exhaustion, and trauma. One third of the three million registered nurses in the U.S. are expected to leave the bedside in the coming decade. By 2025, our country’s health care system will need about 1.1 million more nurses to meet the needs of older and sicker patients. At the same time, available slots in nursing programs are far below the number of qualified applicants. [Source: The Dangerous Impact of the National Nursing Shortage]
Registered nurses and health care professionals of UNAC/UHCP called on California lawmakers to intervene in the chronic nursing shortage—with a half-billion-dollar investment and legislation that will double California’s capacity to graduate new RNs and bring transparency and accountability to the enforcement of California’s lifesaving, ground-breaking nurse-to-patient ratios.
Bold, Visionary Solutions
- A request for a $500 million state investment from 2025 to 2030 for California’s 77 community college nursing schools. We can double our capacity to graduate new nurses in five years.
- Community Nursing: Assembly Bill 1695 will open the nursing pipeline by creating a high school level Nursing 101 course with automatic admission toward an associate degree in nursing (ADN) at the nearest community college. Bringing in nurses from underserved communities will foster cultural competency and awareness to improve patient care.
- Clearing the Bottleneck: Nursing students need clinical placement hours to graduate. Assembly Bill 1577 will compel more clinical placements from hospitals.
- Staffing Law Enforcement: Assembly Bill 1063 will bring transparency, accountability, and RN input into the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) enforcement of nurse staffing ratios.
Four hundred sixty-seven Southern California Kaiser dietitians, audiologists, speech pathologists and health educators ratified their first collective bargaining agreement as UNAC/UHCP members in May. The contract lowers co-pays by half, enhances medical and dental benefits, and aligns with the contracts of 52,000 other Kaiser Permanente employees in the Alliance of Health Care Unions.
In May, the optometrists in Southern California contacted UNAC/UHCP because Kaiser Permanente kept pushing changes in the KPASCO incentive plan that would have resulted in excessive overbooking, which threatens patient care and the well-being of optometrists. UNAC/UHCP members immediately joined the optometrists’ campaign to speak up for patients and health care professionals. By wearing thousands of stickers and displaying hundreds of car signs in and around Kaiser facilities, UNAC/UHCP members elevated the voices of optometrists in actions widely shared on social media. UNAC/UHCP delivered a clear message: Patients deserve our full attention. As a result of our collective actions, KPASCO reached an agreement with Kaiser Permanente on realistic productivity goals and the path forward to collaborate on future goals.
Join UNAC/UHCP
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Meet the executive team leading UNAC/UHCP
The UNAC/UHCP Board of Directors
About UNAC/UHCP
A small group of unappreciated nurses to 35,000 members across California and Hawaii. Watch the 50th Anniversary UNAC/UHCP documentary, UNAC/UHCP: Building Power Through the Decades, produced in 2022.
