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In March 1975, X-ray technicians demanding higher wages walk out in what is Group Health Cooperative's first strike. The strike is quickly settled and the technicians are back to work in 10 days, but the action is a signal that Group Health can no longer rely on its historic alliance with organized labor to insulate it from tough bargaining as unions struggle to regain incomes eroded by wage-controls and hyper-inflation.

Under federal labor law, employees of nonprofit hospitals had gained the right to strike only two years before.

Sources: Walt Crowley, To Serve the Greatest Number: A History of Group Health Cooperative of Seattle (Seattle: GHC/University of Washington Press, 1995), 150-151.

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