Some 4,000 nurses and other Kaiser Permanente health care professionals in Oregon and southwest Washington are slated to walk off the job for five days starting at 7 a.m. Tuesday.

The planned five-day strike comes after Kaiser and the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, the union that represents the nurses and other frontline health workers, have not reached agreement on labor contracts , which expired last month.

The union is part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which represents 61,000 Kaiser workers across the country. Both organizations have been in local and national negotiations with Kaiser since this spring but remain divided over key issues, including wages, staffing levels and scheduling practices.

The striking workers primarily consist of nurses,

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