Thousands of registered nurses and health care professionals at Kaiser Permanente facilities across Hawaii are planning to go on strike Tuesday.

Organizers of the planned strike say workers with the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals will start their five-day walkout beginning Tuesday morning and ending on Oct. 19.

According to union representatives, the frontline health care workers in Hawaii and in California are going on strike after efforts to reach agreements with Kaiser executives on staffing, pay, benefits and more failed.

The representatives say unsafe staffing, burnout and pay gaps are threatening quality care while Kaiser’s offer on pay lags behind inflation and rising costs of housing, food and health care. The union also claims Kaiser is cutting retirement benefits and job protections for its newest union members.

If the strike happens, it will be the largest strike in the UNAC/UHCP’s history.

In Hawaii, there are three key picket locations including two on Oahu and one at the Kaiser Permanente Maui Lani Medical Office at 55 Maui Lani Parkway in Wailuku.

The strike is expected to include registered nurses, pharmacists, nurse anesthetists, nurse practitioners, midwives, physician assistants, rehab therapists, speech language pathologists, dietitians and other specialty health care professionals.

According to UNAC/UHCP, it is a member union of the Alliance of Health Care Unions, and many of those unions also have delivered strike notices, so as many as 46,000 Kaiser employees could join strike lines in California, Hawaii and Oregon.