SoCal Kaiser Permanente Mental Health Professionals Set to Strike

Kaiser Permanente employees walk a picket line outside the nonprofit healthcare coalition’s Oakland, Calif., hospital, on Oct. 4, 2023. Jill McLaughlin/The Epoch Times

Southern California Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists plan to go on strike Oct. 21 after union negotiations with the large medical provider stalled over better pay and more staffing.

About 2,400 psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, addiction medicine counselors, and marriage and family therapists from San Diego to Bakersfield are expected to walk off their jobs at the company’s 16 hospitals and nearly 200 medical offices.

The workers, represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, are asking for more staffing, more pay, and more time during the week to work on patient cases and paperwork.

Their contract expired Sept. 30, before the two sides could agree on a new one. A bargaining session was held Thursday, but no agreement was reached, according to the union.

No more sessions are scheduled until after the strike starts Monday.

“This is about equity for mental health care,” Jessica Rentz, a Kaiser therapist in Fontana, said in a statement Friday. “We want to be with our patients, not on a picket line, but we can’t keep working in a system that treats mental health care like an assembly line job and denies us the time and resources to provide the care we know our patients need.”

In a video posted on Facebook Oct. 9, the union said Kaiser’s mental health system “hurts both patients and caregivers.”

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Maria Favela Castro said she was ready to walk out.

“I’m ready to strike because Kaiser would rather pay millions of dollars in fines than give its behavioral health staff livable wages and fair retirement benefits, and fix its broken mental health care system that continues to harm our patients daily,” she said.

In October 2023, the state’s Department of Managed Health Care settlement with Kaiser included a $50 million fine and mandated Kaiser create a plan to address deficiencies in delivery and oversight of behavioral health care.

Striking Kaiser Permanente workers hold signs as they march in front of the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center on Oct. 4, 2023. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Kaiser currently has about one therapist on staff for about every 3,000 members in Southern California, according to the union. As a result, patients don’t have access to timely mental health care appointments and follow-ups.

“Kaiser’s [mental health] system continues to be broken even after a $50 million state fine,” the union posted on social media Friday. “That hurts patients, workers, and entire communities. We say no more.”

Northern California mental health therapists went on strike for 10 weeks in 2022 before Kaiser agreed to increase staffing and provide more services at clinics. Kaiser employees also staged a three-day strike in October 2023.

Over the past year, 40 mental health therapists in Southern California left their jobs to take telehealth jobs with Kaiser in Northern California, where they get more pay, more time for patient care duties, and a pension, according to the union.

Kaiser’s Offer

Kaiser Permanente, which has over 4.7 million members in Southern California, responded to the strike authorization, saying the strike distracts the two sides from reaching an agreement.

“While the threat of a strike may serve [the union’s] own reputational interests, it only distracts from the work we need to do together to reach a fair agreement and creates unnecessary concern for our members who count on our expert mental health professionals for their quality care,” Kaiser wrote in the response at the beginning of October. “We have put forward a strong offer that not only increases wages, which on average are already 18 percent above market, but also enhances our industry-leading comprehensive benefits for our mental health professionals.”

Kaiser’s current offer includes an 18-percent wage increase over four years—5 percent in the first year, followed by another 5 percent the second year, and 4 percent increases for each of the third and fourth years.

The company also added a longevity increase of 2 percent for those working for Kaiser for more than 25 years.

Kaiser Permanente health care employees, joined by union members representing the workers, walk the picket line in Los Angeles during the start of a three-day strike on Oct. 4, 2023. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

The medical plan offered is free to employees with low copays and no deductibles.

Employees would also get bonus money added to health reimbursement accounts and increases in retirement contributions, with the company contributing 6 percent even if employees don’t contribute to their plan, plus up to 9 percent match for contributions.

On the job, mental health professionals would also get up to six hours a week for planning, preparation, and training activities—something not in the current contract.

Kaiser is also offering student loan repayment of up to $10,000 for bachelor’s or master’s graduates, and $20,000 for doctoral graduates. They would also be eligible for $3,000 in tuition reimbursement beyond what other Kaiser Permanente employees already receive.

Kaiser works with over 40 unions and employs the largest number of represented health care workers in the country, according to the company.

Health care workers are expected to walk picket lines from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday at the Los Angeles Medical Center, on West Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, and the San Diego Medical Center, on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard in San Diego.

The union has also scheduled picket lines in Fontana and Anaheim, but many workers at those sites will take buses to join the protests in Los Angeles.