2,400 Behavioral Health Staff at Kaiser Permanente Go On Strike

Behavioral health clinicians at Kaiser Permanente on Monday started an open-ended strike in Southern California.

An estimated 2,400 therapists, psychologists, social workers and psychiatric nurse practitioners stopped work, and will continue to picket various Kaiser Permanente locations. In part, the mental health and addiction treatment providers are asking Kaiser, a nonprofit and one of the largest health care and health insurance providers in the U.S., for additional investment in the mental health business in the region.

The clinicians are represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). In a statement, NUHW states that it wants its members in Southern California to get a collective bargaining contract similar to what was provided to Kaiser Permanente mental health clinicians in Northern California. That strike lasted about 10 weeks.

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NUHW also said its mental health clinician members in Southern California are also seeking salary parity with non-mental health staff and the addition of mental health clinicians hired after 2014 to the Kaiser Permanente pension system.

“Everything we’re proposing in negotiations, Kaiser is already providing to the vast majority of its workforce,” Adriana Webb, a medical social worker with Kaiser Permanente, said in a NUHW statement. “If Kaiser is serious about transforming its mental health care system, it has to start by ending the inequities that harm us and our patients.”

A Kaiser Permanente spokesperson said that patients will be able to receive mental health services during the strike. Existing clinicians not striking and contractors hired by the nonprofit will continue to see patients. About 60% of Kaiser behavioral health patients are being treated by clinicians that are not participating in the strike, the spokesperson said.

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Bargaining for a new contract began in July. Kaiser Permanente and NUHW accuse the other for unreasonable rejections of the other’s offers. Union members authorized a strike on Oct. 3 and announced the Oct. 21 work stoppage on Oct. 11.

The 10-week work stoppage in Northern California in 2022 resulted, in part, in seven hours a week for non-clinical work, increased wages, more time to conduct initial patient assessments, and a commitment on the part of Kaiser to hire more staff, including mental health clinicians. 

Also in 2022, Kaiser Permanente mental health staff in Hawaii launched a strike that lasted 172 days, or about 5.5 months. Concessions vaunted by NUHW, which was also involved in that strike, include wage increases, an additional raise for bilingual therapists and pension benefits for new hires, according to local media

While not a dominant force, some unionization efforts have been seen in the behavioral health space over the last few years. Most of that activity has been in connection with hospital systems, where there is a greater connection to unions. Overall, health care has the seventh highest rate of workers that are members of a union in 2023, at 11.6%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 18% of registered nurses are part of or covered by a union, according to other research

Elsewhere, clinicians at the virtual addiction treatment provider Bicycle Health approved unionizing with the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD) earlier in the year. The unionization effort somewhat overlapped with a layoff at Bicycle Health, in terms of timing. In February 2023, clinicians at the hybrid in-person and virtual therapy provider Resilience Lab approved unionizing with the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees.

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