When hospice nurse Kristina Nauheimer joined the growing unionization push among end-of-life care workers in 2022, she knew there was a fight ahead. But she and her coworkers at two Bay Area hospices in California didn’t expect to be at the negotiating table with Providence, their hospice operator, for more than two years — or that their employer would merge with a private-equity-owned firm.
“I didn’t think it would take this long to achieve this little,” said Nauheimer, who joined about 100 workers from the company’s Hospice of Petaluma and Santa Rosa Memorial Hospice in a two-day strike with their union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, on July 2 and 3. They struck, said Nauheimer, because contract negotiations with Providence, their operator, have been at a standstill.
