Ted Eytan / Flickr / Creative Commons

Registered nurses and other unionized health care workers at more than 500 Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics in California, Oregon and Hawaii agreed to end a five-day strike yesterday as planned and return to the bargaining table on a new contract.

The coalition of unions, represented by the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), has been advocating for increased wages, better retirement benefits and more robust staffing at Kaiser health care centers. But Kaiser Permanente said in a statement that the main issue was wages.

The union coalition represents the roughly 31,000 employees in a range of positions that include pharmacists, optometrists, physical and speech therapists, lab technician

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