The 196 -day strike by mental health workers southern California is over. The 2,400 therapists, psychiatric nurses, social workers and psychologists have won significant gains not only for themselves, but for their patients in a time of acute mental health crisis. They are members of the National Union of Health Workers.
They survived Kaiser, the immense organization of health support based in California, with six and a half months of modesto stake stakes in San Diego. They organized rallies in medical centers in southern California in Kaiser. They blocked the sunset band. They organized a hunger strike, bringing their own health to improve patient care and reverse the Kaiser misconduct.
“There is no doubt that Kaiser remains hostile to mental health care and for us, they fought us at each stage of the path. But it is always the best contract we have ever won, even if it took us more than six months to win it,” said Jim Clifford, a behavioral health advisor who has worked for Kaiser in San Diego since 2001.
“We have not only found a defined service pension, we have obtained our greatest increase and more than double time guaranteed for patient care tasks,” he said.
More than six months
“These negotiations were like fighting a battle,” said Adrianna Webb, member of the negotiation committee and medical worker medical at Panorama City in Los Angeles.
A temporary agreement was concluded on May 4 and the strike ended on May 5. The four -year contract will come into force retroactively from October 1, 2024.
The new contract includes increases of 20% over four years and an additional $ 2,500 signature bonus. It includes a modified defined pension plan, a big step towards the restoration of the plan that Kaiser took, plus five hours per week of preparation.
The strikers wanted seven hours of preparation to answer the calls and e-mails of patients, appointment, designed processing plans and communication with social service agencies. The preparation time is “essential if our patients will obtain the follow -up they deserve and that payment,” said WebB.
Strikers also looked for equity with Kaiser medical workers and equity with mental health workers in northern California, and they could not succeed.
“Dangerously broken”
The other big strike problem was the chronic sub-system. They do not guarantee that the major improvements in the endowment will be to come.
“Kaiser’s systemic behavioral health failures have deadly consequences for the communities in southern California and the whole state. There is no evidence that does not lack that the Kaiser mental health system is dangerously broken and has long been, “said Sal Rosselli, emeritus president of Nuhw.
As with other labor disputes, Kaiser’s strategy was to stall. They let go for months without coming to the table. When they came, they had nothing to offer.
The strikers had to face the holidays without payroll checks, although there were trucks of toy for support unions.
Kaiser had a lot of money to try to starve. Its 2023 profits were $ 4.1 billion in 2023; It has $ 64 billion in the bank. The “remuneration” of the CEO of Kaiser Greg Adams 2023 was $ 17,268,060.
“They spent much more money trying to break us than settled with us would have cost. They paid $ 13,000 of therapists per week,” said Clifford.
Other unions have rallied
Kaiser claims to be adapted to unions; Its roots are in collaboration with unions during the quantities. Tens of thousands of trade unionists are patients. But Kaiser ignored these workers’ requests, as well as practically the call of the Labor Movement in southern California to settle. The central labor councils in San Diego and Los Angeles supported the strike, as is the County of Orange and the Inner Empire.
“All CLCs were extraordinary in their continuous support,” said Rosselli. Teacher unions, communications workers, UFCW 770, Longshore workers and nurses were also supported.
The elected officials weighed. President of the Senate in California Temporary Mike McGuire sent Kaiser a letter signed by 20 senators expressing that Kaiser cancels the therapy sessions at “an alarming pace” during the strike. They urged the CEO Adams to “accept the union’s reasonable contract proposals to provide the provision of behavioral health services in a timely and appropriate time to your patients”. The Los Angeles city councilor, Hugo Soto Martinez, often came to strike lines and honored the strikers at a meeting of the Los Angeles municipal council.
“I am proud that we have taken a stand for mental health care and have made gains for ourselves and patients,” said Lourdes Cortez, social worker for Kaiser in Bakersfield. “We resisted a giant, and we continued to fight as long as it took to obtain a contract on which we can build ourselves.”
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