Kaiser Permenente Psychiatrists Plan Indefinite Strike – NBC Los Angeles

More than 2,000 psychiatric workers at Southern California’s Kaiser Permanente hospital plan to leave their jobs, their union said Friday.

The National Union of Healthcare Workers announced a 10-day health care strike, a union representative said, starting the countdown to an indefinite strike involving psychologists, social workers, addiction counselors and family therapists.

The union members who authorized the strike last week claim that staffing shortages at Kaiser Permanente are forcing patients to wait too long for mental health care.

“We want to be with our patients, but we cannot continue to work in a system that is not meeting their needs and treating us like assembly line workers trying to meet a quota,” said Lisa Delgadillo, a licensed clinical social worker for Kaiser in Fontana.

Another point of contention is that when mental health workers in Northern California signed a four-year contract with Kaiser after a 10-week strike, the hospital system agreed to increase staffing, but only for hospitals and clinics in Northern California.

Southern California workers hope Kaiser will extend the same agreements to their workplaces, the union said.

Mental health professionals serve an estimated 4.8 million Kaiser Permanente members throughout Southern California from San Diego to Bakersfield.

Contract negotiations will continue into next week, with union members and the hospital system scheduled to meet Tuesday and Thursday.

NBCLA has reached out to Kaiser for comment.