Thousands of Kaiser Permanente mental health workers in Southern California are set to hit the picket line Monday.
Nearly 2,400 workers begin their strike with large marches planned outside Kaiser medical centers in Los Angeles and San Diego from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“There will also be picket lines Monday in Fontana and Anaheim, however, many workers at those sites will take buses on Monday to join their colleagues at Kaiser’s Los Angeles Medical Center to begin the strike,” a spokesperson for the National Union of Healthcare Workers(NUHW) workers stated.
The NUHW says the strike will not end until a deal is reached on what they describe as fair pay for workers, a restoration of pensions, and allowances for more time with patients.
“We’re not just doing this for ourselves. We’re doing this for the patients and we’re doing this for the profession because the way Kaiser is handling mental health, it’s not the way it’s meant to be. So, we’re doing this for the future of mental health as a whole,” Psychiatric Counselor Natalie Espinoza said.
Kaiser released a statement Monday morning saying the strike was unnecessary and denied that workers want to spend more time with patients:
“Today’s strike is entirely unnecessary and unfortunately not surprising. NUHW leaders have been threatening to strike since before we began bargaining in July. The union has been slow-walking negotiations, despite the strong proposals Kaiser Permanente has put on the table. The union’s proposals at the table have been overreaching and unreasonable … The union isn’t calling for more time to care for patients. It is demanding more money for therapists to spend LESS time seeing patients,” a portion of the statement read.
