NUHW President Emeritus Sal Rosselli received this year’s Jim Preis Memorial Award at the Mental Health Advocacy Services’ 2024 Annual Celebration.
The event, held in October, is an opportunity to recognize the vital contributions made possible by mental health advocates in and around Los Angeles.
In accepting the award, Sal paid homage to NUHW’s more than 5,000 members who work in behavioral health care, including therapists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, addiction medicine counselors, and psychologists at Kaiser Permanente, who have fought for over a decade to demand better care for Kaiser patients.
“I can’t express enough how inspired I am by their solidarity to each other, their commitment to their patients, and their willingness to fight for what’s right,” Sal said during his acceptance speech. “I believe the pathway to parity is by organizing mental health professionals to use their collective power — because I’ve seen how powerful they are when they stand together.”
The award ceremony occurred two days before our open-ended strike against Kaiser in Southern California. Sal devoted part of his remarks to informing attendees about the strike, urging them to donate to our hardship fund, and join workers on the picket lines.
“Kaiser still thinks it’s ok to give all 180,000 of its employees in California defined benefit pensions — except its mental health workforce in Southern California,” Sal said. “It’s not OK. This will be one of the biggest strikes in our union’s history and one of the biggest mental health strikes ever.”
Mental Health Advocacy Services is a team of lawyers and legal advocates that help ensure low-income people with mental health conditions have access to the justice system, fair housing, and community-based supportive services.
Jim Preis was the agency’s long-time executive director and an attorney who fought for the rights of people with mental health conditions. He died in 2018.
