Back strike by Southern California Kaiser workers

By Bernie Senter
November 18, 2024
Lilian Honanian on picket line at Kaiser West Los Angeles Medical Center Oct. 31. Workers are striking for more hiring, pensions.
Militant/Bernie SenterLilian Honanian on picket line at Kaiser West Los Angeles Medical Center Oct. 31. Workers are striking for more hiring, pensions.

LOS ANGELES — Some 2,400 psychologists, therapists and other mental health workers have been on strike against Kaiser Permanente across Southern California since Oct. 21. “Unless we strike, our coworkers are going to keep leaving and our patients are going to keep struggling in an underfunded, understaffed system that doesn’t meet their needs,” Josh Garcia, a psychologist for Kaiser in San Diego, said in a statement distributed by the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

“I’ve worked at Kaiser 11 years,” Lilian Honanian told the Militant on the picket line in West Los Angeles Oct. 31. “It’s like an assembly line. It’s a factory.” Honanian, a psychiatric social worker, said they end up spending hours of their own time doing work because managers book patients back to back. “Conditions we have are unsustainable. We’re struggling because we don’t have enough time. They tell us to take notes home and work on them there. We’re not paid hourly, so we are not paid overtime.”

“Some people wait up to three months for an appointment,” Vanessa Ramirez, a mental health registered nurse, told the Militant. The strike comes a year after Kaiser was fined $50 million by California state regulators for excessive wait times for therapy appointments.

Jeremy Simpkin, a case manager with Kaiser for five years in Lomita, joined the West Los Angeles picket. “If you don’t fill their productivity metrics, you’re in trouble. Corporate America is squeezing the life out of us.”

A 10-week strike in 2022 by Kaiser mental health therapists in Northern California won important gains, including more time for patient care duties between appointments, increased staffing levels and more services at clinics. A National Union of Healthcare Workers Oct. 21 press release notes, “Kaiser management has refused to extend those gains to Southern California, creating in essence a two-tiered mental health system. Kaiser staffs approximately 40 percent fewer mental health workers in its Southern California region than its Northern California region — even though Kaiser has about 200,000 more members in Southern California.”

The union is also fighting for the restoration of pensions. “Nearly all Kaiser employees receive pensions — including doctors, clerks, medical technicians and janitors — but Kaiser eliminated pensions for all mental health professionals hired after 2014,” the union said. It is also demanding a 30% wage increase over four years.

Join the picket line. For locations go to: https://home.nuhw.org/2024/10/20/kaiser-mental-health-strike-picket-line-locations/.