Mental health workers protest outside the Los Angeles Medical Center Kaiser on a band of Sunset Blvd. They go around their sixth month of strike on wages, advantages and time between patients.
Katia Riddle / NPR
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Katia Riddle / NPR
In many ways, it was the usual protest scene. Dozens of striking mental health workers chanted and paraded Tuesday outside a permanent Kaiser medical center on a animated band of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. The passing cars horn in support. People vigorously agitated homemade signs.
But some of the striking workers were quietly seated in a tent, keeping their energy and mixing electrolytic drinks – their only planned subsistence for five days.
Frustrated and feeling unable to make their voices heard after almost six months of strike to demand more wages and benefits, these eight therapists had their protest to the next level with a five -day hunger strike.
It is “an effort on our part to let them know that we are serious,” said Aida Valdivia, an approved wedding and family therapist, who is one of the hunger attackers.
Many workers on strike are already sacrificed, says Valdivia, draining their savings accounts, going to food banks and taking money from friends and family in recent months.
“We had to limit our food anyway,” said Valdivia. “So, fundamentally, you hush up, Kaiser.”
The workers began their strike in October, arguing that they deserve the same pension as the other workers from Kaiser Permanent, and pay the equivalent of their colleagues in the same therapeutic positions in other parts of the State.
They also argue that other Kaiser health workers with similar training levels, such as occupational therapists and radiation technicians, increase up to 40% more than those of mental health.
Many say that they don’t have time to eat or go to the toilet between customers. Their requests include more time between patients for things like planning and paperwork.
Some workers have returned to their jobs, but hundreds remain on strike without salary. The organizers believe that it is the longest strike of mental health agents in the history of the United States.
Permanent Kaiser – An organization that works as an anterior and as the largest health care provider in California – has paid millions of dollars in fines in recent years to the state for the failure of its behavioral health system to provide adequate care. Many fines were linked to long waiting times, which mental health professionals hold as another indicator of overworked and under-sought-after workforce.
The representatives of Kaiser Permanent recognize that certain advantages and wages are not equal to others, but argue that they always pay their workers in a competitive manner.
Mental health agents receive retirement services, but argue that the advantages are not the same as the generous pension as their colleagues from other departments – including those who occupy administration or service – win. When asked if that was true, Kaiser’s representatives replied that they did not know.
In a written email statement, Kaiser Permanent spokesperson Terry Kanakri said the union “required a significantly higher salary to take care of fewer patients.” He and other representatives argue that southern California has a different economic dynamic in other parts of the State, and maintains that it is “business responsibility to balance the supply of a generous contract for our employees with high quality care accessible and affordable for our members”.
Eight workers camped in a church scholarship room for a week together when they were on the hunger strike of five days. They rented a hotel room and took turns using the shower.
Katia Riddle / NPR
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Katia Riddle / NPR
However, the hunger strike ensures that the management of Kaiser permanent was noted. “Making our employees to make a hunger strike is very disturbing for us,” said Patty Clawson, main vice-president of the continuum of clinical operations and services for the company in the Southern California region.
Clawson says that management is impatient to return to the negotiating table: “We are committed to finding the ground for all of us.”
“Is it normal to make chills?”
Sitting under the tent with other hunger strikers, Adriana Webb registered with a nurse who came to follow their progress. “I felt like I was receiving a little chills,” webb said, who was on his second day of hunger strike. “I went to googled it and he said it could be because I’m in ketosis not to eat.”
“It’s a bit early for that,” replied David Verdiner, a nurse who works in the gastrointestinal department and abandoned her lunch time to offer this medical advice. “It could be your blood sugar is a bit low.”
Verdiner is one of the many volunteers from other unions who surveillance for these strikers. “The biggest thing is that you feel good today,” he reassured her. “Your body goes through withdrawals, right? You are used to taking three meals a day.”
Supporting the strikers nearby on the picking line, Sal Roseli held a sign that said “even a company, even work. Why not the same salary, the pension, the advantages”? “”
Former president of the National Union of Health workers, Roseli said that Kaiser Permanete has the opportunity to be a leader on the issue of mental health parity. He imagines that this hunger strike could help the United States at a time when “the term mental health care does not exist. It is simply health care”.
Lack of mental health parity – Equality in remuneration and investment between mental health care and physical health care – is a national problem. A report have shown that around two thirds of Americans with diagnosed mental health could not have access to treatment, although they have health insurance.
California has passed parity laws To put mental health on the same basis as physical health. Roseli says it is time for the state’s medical institutions to show their commitment.
California’s history of hunger
Although hunger strikes are not common as an organizational tool, some retrace their history to Cesar Chavez Historical agricultural workers strike. “At least in my reading, a very Californian thing,” explains Erik Loomis, a work historian at the University of Rhode Island. “It’s very connected to Chavez’s experience.”
Loomis warns that when the strikes persist, it can be a challenge for workers to win. “When you have a strike that lasts a long time, it becomes very difficult to win this strike, because it generally means that the employer has the upper hand,” he said.
Doing something extreme as a hunger strike, says Loomis, could be a curve ball. “Given the objectives of this strike, this can be quite effective,” explains Loomis, but he warns that in the competition for the eyeballs and the ears in America, “attracting attention has become more difficult”.
Friday, the union announced that they had planned new negotiation dates next week with Kaiser Permanent. It was the first meeting in a month, since the previous negotiations deteriorated.
Tom MorelloRock Band long -standing member Rage against the machinestopped to encourage strikers on Tuesday with a quick concert. “I am a man from the Union,” he told the acclaiming crowd. “When you say union, I say power!”
Tom Morello of the group Rage Against The Machine told the strike workers that he had grown up with a single mother who was a high school teacher and in a union. “We never had a lot of money, but we had enough money for food on the table. Shirts on the back and amplifiers in our basement.” None of this would have been possible, he said, without the workers’ movement.
Katia Riddle / NPR
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Katia Riddle / NPR
After a few songs on the sidewalk, Morello left the attackers with this: “I believe that the future of the working class in this country will not be decided by the Congress. It will not be decided before the courts”, explains Morello.
“It will be decided by the solidarity of people like you like you like that.”