More than 2,000 mental health workers at Southern California’s Kaiser Permanente hospital are planning to walk off the job, their union said Friday.
The National Union of Healthcare Workers gave a 10-day strike notice to the health care system, a union representative said, starting a countdown to an open-ended strike, involving psychologists, social workers, addiction counselors and family therapists.
The unionized members, who authorized the strike last week, claim a lack of sufficient staffing within Kaiser Permanente forces patients to wait too long for mental health care.
“We want to be with our patients, but we can’t keep working in a system that doesn’t meet their needs and treats us like assembly line workers trying to meet a quota,” said Lisa Delgadillo, a licensed clinical social worker for Kaiser in Fontana.
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Another point of contention is that when mental health workers in Northern California signed a four-year contract with Kaiser following a 10-week strike, the hospital system agreed to increase staffing but only for Northern California hospitals and clinics.
Southern California workers are hoping Kaiser will extend the same agreements to their workplaces as well, the union said.
The mental health professionals serve an estimated 4.8 million Kaiser Permanente members across Southern California from San Diego to Bakersfield.
Contract negotiations will still continue through next week as the union members and the hospital system are scheduled to meet Tuesday and Thursday.
NBCLA has reached out to Kaiser for comment.
