Workers at Rogers Behavioral Health in Walnut Creek have ratified their first union contract with substantial salary increases and caseload limits, inspiring fellow employees at the company’s San Diego site to also unionize to defend their workplace rights and quality patient care.
Workers at the Walnut Creek location, which provides mental health and addiction services, unionized last year and had been negotiating an agreement for nearly a year.
“It was a laborious, slow process for the majority of it,” said licensed therapist Brianna Webb Almanza of dealing with a “union-naive employer” that had to learn “what rights we now had as a union workforce.”
Initially, Rogers hired a negotiator who only wanted to bargain remotely and then would only bargain in a rented room adjacent to a noisy basketball court. But the workers started to wear down management, which changed its negotiating team and changed its tune as it became clear that workers were willing to strike over key provisions they found objectionable.
Throughout the process, the nearly 30 workers maintained a strong unity and rotated who would attend each session, providing updates to their coworkers through phone calls, texts, and Zoom meetings.
The result was a contract that provides wage increases of up to 22 percent as well as:
- Limits on caseloads.
- Limits on how many newly admitted patients can be assigned to a therapist or a registered nurse.
- A provision allowing workers to waive their no-strike clause, if the employer seeks to change working conditions.
- A prohibition against any job losses due to new technology such as artificial intelligence.
“We have solid respect from the employer,” she said. “We have leverage to protect ourselves and protect our patients.”
