Striking mental health care workers at Kaiser Permanente were back on the picket lines this week, beginning Monday, November 11 at one site in San Diego as well as others at multiple Southern California medical centers in a continuing dispute with management.
Union officials said workers would be picketing be at the San Diego location all week – Monday through Friday at San Diego Medical Center, located at 9455 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Picket lines will begin at 8 a.m. and run through 2 p.m.
The union’s contract with Kaiser expired Sept. 30. No bargaining sessions are scheduled for this week.
According to the union, the key issues remain “Kaiser’s unwillingness to provide its nearly 2,400 mental health professionals in Southern California the same amount of time for critical patient care duties that can’t be done during appointments as their counterparts in Northern California — as well as the same wage levels and retirement benefits as comparable workers throughout the Kaiser system.”
According to the union, the impacted workers include psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, addiction medicine counselors, licensed clinical counselors and marriage and family therapists who “provide behavioral health care for Kaiser’s 4.8 million members in hospitals, clinics and medical offices [and] homecare settings from San Diego to Bakersfield.”
The labor dispute comes one year after Kaiser reached a $50 million settlement with state regulators who said the health care giant’s mental health care system lacked adequate staffing that caused lapses in access to care for patients.
Other locations being picketed include LA, Anaheim, Fontana, Woodland Hills, Downey, and Riverside.
The company– which has been running full-page ads in the LA Times – said it was prepared to ensure the continuation of patient service during the strike.
Edited from San Diego Patch …City News Service
