About 4,000 Kaiser Permanente Mental Health Care Workers Kick Off Weeklong Strike Over Staffing Levels

The Associated Press: Mental Health Workers Start Weeklong Strike In California
Thousands of Kaiser Permanente mental health professionals throughout California started a weeklong strike Monday to protest what they say is a lack of staffing that affects care. Outside Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics in the San Francisco Bay Area dozens of workers marched Monday holding signs that read "Kaiser, Don't Deny My Patients Mental Health Care," and "Care Delayed is Care Denied." (12/10)

Modern Healthcare: Kaiser Permanente Mental Health Workers Begin Five-Day Strike 
The National Union of Healthcare Workers organized the strike. The NUHW says it has been in contract negotiations with the massive, Oakland, Calif.-based not-for-profit health system since June. The union says Kaiser has rejected therapists' proposals to boost staffing and end long waits for therapy appointments, while Kaiser says it has hired more than 500 new therapists in California since 2015. The NUHW says Kaiser has offered lower raises relative to its coalition of unions, has declined to compensate for denying some workers' raises between 2011 and 2014 and has refused to restore pensions to recently hired workers in Southern California. (Bannow, 12/10)

Los Angeles Times: Kaiser Permanente Mental Health Workers Begin Weeklong Strike
The workers on strike include licensed clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, medical social workers and psychiatric nurses who are part of the National Union of Healthcare Workers. The union has called for smaller patient-to-therapist ratios, fewer patient referrals to therapists outside the Kaiser network and, in some cases, increased staffing. Its latest contract with Kaiser expired in September. (Masunaga, 12/10)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Kaiser Permanente Mental Health Workers Set To Strike In Santa Rosa
As a result, mental health care appointments during the week may be canceled, but the union’s president said the strike is in the long-term best interest of patients who have to wait a month or more for follow-up mental health appointments due to low staffing levels. “They’ve canceled appointments for these five days, but there’s a critical situation every day of the year,” Sal Rosselli, the union’s president, said Sunday. (Geha, 12/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser Mental Health Workers Strike, Citing Long Patient Wait Times 
Kaiser facilities remain open during the strike. Patients who have appointments for mental health services scheduled for this week are being seen by managers or psychiatrists, or have moved their appointments to another week. (Ho, 12/10)

KPBS: Kaiser Mental Health Workers Start Five-Day Strike 
Land-Ariizumi was one of dozens of unionized workers holding signs, chanting and marching outside of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Clairemont Mesa. He said inadequate staffing is putting patients at risk. “An increase in depression and an increase in anxiety, possible suicide,” Land-Ariizumi said. “It really is a matter of getting them the care ... so that they progressively get better.” (Murphy, 12/10)

East Bay Times: The Kaiser Walkout: By The Numbers
With their union leaders lambasting Kaiser Permanente for what they say is severe understaffing at the network’s clinics, thousands of mental-health professionals have begun a five-day strike to call attention to the shortage. Union president Sal Rosselli told this newspaper that patients in the Bay Area and beyond often must wait weeks for follow-up appointments because of inadequate staffing, and he’s calling on Kaiser to hire hundreds more clinicians. Kaiser executives, however, argue that the walkout is really about employees seeking higher wages, not about providing better care. (May, 12/10)