Now in the sixth month of the longest mental health strike in California history, striking mental health therapists, social workers and nurses will protest outside Kaiser facilities in Bakersfield demanding a contract that will help fix the giant HMO’s broken mental health care system.
BAKERSFIELD — Striking Kaiser Permanente mental health workers from across Southern California will protest and march in Bakersfield Thursday, joined by elected officials and community allies.
WHO/WHAT: Protest and march in Bakersfield by striking Kaiser mental health professionals, members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
WHEN/WHERE: Rally at 11:15 a.m. Thursday, March 27 outside Kaiser’s Medical Offices at 4900 California Ave. followed by a half-mile march to Kaiser’s Administrative Offices at 5055 California Ave.
It’s been over five months since more than 2,400 Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists, psychologists, social workers and psychiatric nurses went on strike in Southern California, determined to make Kaiser stop treating mental health care as a second-class service.
However, despite a majority of state lawmakers urging Kaiser to settle on the workers’ terms and evidence of large scale appointment cancellations, Kaiser executives still insist on maintaining inferior conditions for its Southern California mental health workers, which have resulted in record state fines, understaffed clinics and illegally long waits for appointments that often stretch over a month.
No negotiations have been scheduled since mediation broke down earlier this month. Kaiser remains unwilling to provide the same amount of time for critical patient care duties that it already gives therapists in Northern California or restore pensions that it took away from Southern California mental health workers a decade ago, but still provides to nearly all other Kaiser employees.
The protest in Bakersfield on Thursday will be the last in a series of actions this week, with protests taking place today in San Diego and Pasadena on Wednesday.
“This is about equity for mental health care,” said Lourdes Cortez, a striking social worker for Kaiser in Bakersfield. “If Kaiser is serious about fixing its mental health care services, the first step is a contract that gives us enough time to meet the needs of our patients and ends the disparity between mental health care and every other service Kaiser provides.”
Kaiser, which is sitting on $60 billion in financial reserves, provides mental health services for its 4.8 million members in Southern California. In 2023, the state of California ordered Kaiser to pay a $200 million penalty, including a $50 million fine, for mental health violations that included excessive appointment wait times due to the understaffing of mental health services. Kaiser was also fined $4 million in 2013 for mental health violations and later put under state oversight.
Since the strike began, NUHW has filed more than a dozen complaints documenting that Kaiser is further violating the rights of patients during the strike, making it harder than ever to access mental health services. The complaints show that Kaiser is:
- Illegally putting patients on 30-day appointment waitlists,
- Making patients wait up to 44 weeks for autism assessments,
- Cancelling group therapy appointments for thousands of patients including postpartum mothers, and
- Sending patients with severe mental health conditions to outside provider networks that aren’t capable of treating them.
“Kaiser is letting things go from bad to worse for patients, and there’s no excuse for it,” said Mayra Castro, a striking Kaiser social worker in Bakersfield. “We’re not asking for anything Kaiser doesn’t already provide nearly all of its employees, and everything we’re seeking would increase staffing and improve access to care.”
Below are the three major issues that remain unresolved.
- Patient Care Time: In Northern California, Kaiser guarantees full-time therapists 7 hours per week for patient care duties that can’t be done during therapy sessions, such as responding to patient calls and emails, preparing for appointments, communicating with social service agencies, making charting notes and devising treatment plans. The lack of time for these tasks in Southern California is a major reason why therapists leave Kaiser, contributing to the HMO’s chronic understaffing issues. Still, Kaiser is proposing to only guarantee five hours per week, while therapists in Southern California earlier this month reduced their request from seven to six hours per week.
- Pension Restoration: Workers are seeking the same defined benefit pensions Kaiser provides to nearly all its employees, but eliminated for its Southern California mental health workers a decade ago. Over the course of a 40-year career, Kaiser mental health workers without a pension will receive nearly $2 million less in retirement dollars than Kaiser employees who still have pensions. Kaiser data shows that mental health workers without pensions are twice as likely to leave Kaiser as those with pensions.
- Fair Salaries: Workers are seeking to close the gap between themselves and therapists who provide medical care at Kaiser, who make up to 40 percent higher salaries. Instead, Kaiser is proposing lower raises for its mental health workers than it provided recently to its medical workers in the Coalition of Kaiser Unions.
