About 860 Kaiser Permanente Hawaii workers represented by the Hawaii Nurses Association are embroiled in a labor dispute that has reached the doorstep of federal authorities.

The Hawaii Nurses Association, OPEIU-Local 50, is part of a group of 11 labor unions known as the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions that filed a complaint against the California-based provider with the National Labor Relations Board for refusing to negotiate a contract affecting 85,000 employees in seven states and the District of Columbia. The coalition says the health maintenance organization — both a medical provider and health insurer — has made bargaining conditional on an agreement that workers not speak publicly against Kaiser.

The NLRB has scheduled an evidentiary hearing for March 19 in Oakland, Calif.

The dispute started as a legal complaint filed by the 11 unions in May claiming Kaiser repeatedly canceled contract negotiations with the labor unions in California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Hawaii, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, following a breakup of a former coalition of 32 unions.

Twenty-one labor groups broke away from the coalition in March and reached a collective bargaining agreement with Kaiser in November that “prohibits those unions from taking action against the company, whether through ballot initiatives, legislation or other public campaigns.”

The coalition says Kaiser is trying to apply the “same condition to bargaining” with the remaining 11 unions.

“Their goal is to squelch the voices of workers, 85,000 of them, and they will drag this out as long as possible,” said Sean Wherley, spokesman for SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, which is part of the coalition.

Kaiser said it is trying to bargain in good faith.

“Ever since the former coalition broke apart, Kaiser Permanente has been doing everything possible to be constructive and make progress. We have already reached agreement with 21 former coalition unions, which now have joined in a new partnership group they have named the Alliance of Health Care Unions,” Kaiser said in a statement posted on its website last month. “We have sought to return to a true spirit of partnership with the remaining unions.”

The coalition said a national agreement with Kaiser expired Sept. 30, after previously bargaining with the HMO since 1997.