Kaiser Permanente isn’t punishing Martha Ton for being a bad therapist. Kaiser is punishing her for being a lactating parent.
After a nearly seven-month strike, in which mental health therapists won additional time for patient care duties that can’t be done during appointments, Kaiser is violating the agreement, and workers are once again taking their concerns directly to patients.
During their lunch hour on January 13, Ton and some of her colleagues were handing out leaflets to patients informing them that Kaiser isn’t actually allowing many therapists the five hours per week they secured in their contract to perform critical patient care duties that can’t be done during therapy sessions.
“It’s hard to be out here again, but inaction is not an option,” said Ton, who works for Kaiser in Riverside. “We’re informing patients that their therapists are exhausted and burned out, and we’re getting a lot of support.”
While Kaiser mental health professionals won strong raises and a new defined benefit pension plan from their strike that started in October of 2024 and lasted into early May of 2025, getting more time for critical patient care duties, including calling back patients, filing reports, preparing for appointments, and creating treatment plans was also one of their top priorities.
To settle the contract, Kaiser agreed to provide full-time therapists with five protected hours per week for patient support work, but then immediately moved to undermine the new requirement.
Kaiser established an unrealistic productivity benchmark, which it is using to pressure therapists — with threats of discipline if the benchmark isn’t met — to book appointments into their protected patient support time.
Kaiser arbitrarily decided that employees who work 32 hours per week would only receive 3.5 hours of protected patient support time, instead of the 4 hours that should be allowed.
Kaiser decided that workers like lactating parents who pump at work or associates who need time for supervision would get even less protected time for patient support work.
For Ton, who works 32 hours per week, Kaiser decided that since she has to pump at work, she’d only get 2 protected-hours per week for patient support duties — not nearly enough time to do everything she needs to provide the best care.
“It’s demoralizing, and it’s bad for patients,” said Ton, who specializes in treating Spanish speakers who often need their therapists to provide more administrative services because they can’t easily communicate with Kaiser support staff. “I don’t have enough time to write reports, return calls, email patients, or prepare for interventions. I often have to stay after work to finish my work, which means I get less time with my young children. Patients, workers, and families are hurting. This is not healthy.”
Ton is still nursing her second child. After she gave birth to her first child, Kaiser provided her with the same amount of patient care support time even while she was pumping, but now the HMO is making it harder for Ton to be a working mother.
“Kaiser constantly sends out messages about how healthy it is for children to be breastfed, and they’re penalizing their own working parents who do it. It’s infuriating.”
Ton’s advocacy work is part of a major initiative by NUHW members in Southern California to stop Kaiser’s violation of the contract they fought so hard to win. Workers are leafleting outside clinics throughout the region and wearing stickers that draw attention to Kaiser’s violations.
Workers made their own video calling on each other to stay united and defend their contract and started their own newsletter to keep everyone informed across the HMO’s many clinics and hospitals across Southern California.
“We’re going to continue to speak up and advocate for ourselves,” Ton said. “I talked to a patient, while leafleting, who was astounded at what was happening. We know it’s not right, and we will continue to advocate until it is.”
