Kaiser Permanente has agreed to request for “focused mediation” that Governor Newsom made on February 6
Mediators will be former Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Mark Ghaly and former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg
It took nearly a month, but Kaiser Permanente has agreed to a focused mediation process aimed at settling a strike by its nearly 2,400 Southern California mental health therapists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and psychologists.
Mediation will begin on Monday, March 10, exactly 21 weeks after the strike began. The mediators will be former Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly and former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who helped mediate an agreement that ended the 10-week mental health strike in Northern California three years ago.
“We’re ready to work the mediators all day, every day to reach a fair agreement that improves Kaiser’s behavioral health system and treats mental health workers on par with the rest of Kaiser’s workforce,” said Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the National Union of Healthcare Workers. “We know that Kaiser patients are struggling more than ever to get the mental health care they need, and we expect Kaiser to work hard on reaching an agreement that gets its mental health professionals back to work and addresses longstanding disparities that have denied patients adequate care and forced Kaiser to pay millions of dollars in fines.”
In 2023, Kaiser agreed to pay a $200 million penalty after being cited by state regulators for multiple mental health violations, including a lack of therapists that resulted in illegally long appointment wait times. Conditions for patients have worsened in Southern California since the start of the strike with Kaiser being criticized for cancelling large numbers of appointments and being called out by state legislators for the practice.
Late last month, NUHW filed a complaint with the California Department of Managed Health Care, documenting that since the strike began the average time for initial autism spectrum assessments has increased by eight weeks in the West Los Angeles and Riverside clinics. In West Los Angeles, the average wait time is now up to 30 weeks for an autism assessment, and in Riverside, it’s now up to 44 weeks.
“The situation for Kaiser patients right now is unacceptable,” Rosselli said. “We have members that have had to return to work due to financial necessity, who are witnessing the conditions patients are enduring, and they are more determined than ever to secure a fair contract that will have lasting benefits for themselves and patients.”
On Feb. 6, Gov. Newsom requested that Kaiser and its union workers agree to a focused mediation process, with mediators shuttling between the two parties, to help broker an agreement to settle the strike. While NUHW agreed immediately, Kaiser held out until finally agreeing to the process over the weekend.
The nearly 2,400 mental health workers, who care for Kaiser’s 4.8 million members in Southern California, are seeking a contract that improves access to behavioral health care and treats them on par with the rest of Kaiser’s workforce.
That includes:
- Reasonable schedules, which Kaiser already provides in Northern California, so therapists can get their work done and perform all of their patient care duties without burning out from back-to-back-to-back appointments.
- Fair salaries that are equivalent to what Kaiser pays comparable employees who provide medical care.
- The same defined benefit pensions Kaiser provides to nearly all its employees, but took away from its Southern California mental health workers a decade ago.
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The National Union of Healthcare Workers is a member-led movement that represents 19,000 healthcare workers in California and Hawai’i, including more than 4,700 Kaiser mental health professionals.
