More than 1,000 registered nurses at Kaiser Permanente are owed wages after an arbitrator resolved a long-running dispute over payroll underpayments, the California Nurses Association said Monday, Oct. 5. The union estimates the missed pay could total tens of millions of dollars, though the amount individual nurses will receive has not been disclosed. The dispute dates to at least 2021, when nurses began reporting underpayments after Kaiser changed its payroll system, according to the union. The arbitrator’s decision came through a process provided for in the labor contract. Kaiser said it disagrees with the union’s description of the dispute but will meet its obligations under the decision. The company said it would contact each affected nurse promptly and is committed to paying employees accurately and in accordance with their contracts. It declined to provide further details about the payroll problem. CNA represents about 25,000 nurses at 22 Kaiser facilities. Union president Michelle Gutierrez Vo, a family medicine nurse at Kaiser Fremont Medical Center, said nurses pressed the company to address the underpayments and welcomed the decision as a win for workers. The repayment comes as Kaiser and the union negotiate a new contract. Staffing levels, wages and nurses’ influence over artificial intelligence in patient care are among the union’s priorities. Kaiser is California’s largest private employer, with 183,000 workers in the state. The company has said its nurses are among the best-compensated in the industry; a Staff Nurse II in Northern California often earns more than $100 an hour before overtime and premium pay, according to Kaiser.