The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which
represents our mental health professionals (primarily
therapists) and other health care professionals in California,
have announced plans to conduct an open-ended statewide strike
beginning on June 11, 2019. We have also received notice from
the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 39, which
represents engineers for facilities and clinical technology in
Northern California, that they will conduct a concurrent
sympathy strike in Northern California only. There are no
planned sympathy strikes in Southern California.
All of our hospitals and medical offices are scheduled to remain open during the strike. As always, our first priority is the safety and care of our members and patients. Kaiser Permanente is taking steps to make sure our members continue to receive high-quality mental health and other health care services during the strike, but some nonurgent mental health and other appointments may need to be rescheduled. Any patients who are affected will receive a personal phone call from a Kaiser Permanente staff member. Specific needs can be discussed with one of our mental health or other health care professionals.
For the past three years, while we had a contract in place with NUHW, it did not engage in this kind of behavior. Now that we are in negotiations with the union to renew our contract, which expired on Sept. 30, union leadership is using negative tactics to pressure Kaiser Permanente during bargaining. While we recognize the union’s legal right to conduct a strike, we believe the bargaining table is the best place to resolve our differences.
We are committed to bargaining in good faith and are working to reach fair agreements that protect and build on the progress we have made to improve mental health services over the last several years. We are also committed to providing an excellent work environment for our mental health and other health care professionals, including to provide competitive wages and benefits. For additional updates, please visit share.kp.org/nuhw.
As we’ve discussed in the past, Kaiser Permanente is
committed to leading the effort to improve mental health care
throughout the health care community. Below are some
resources available for members and non-members to access if
you’d like to share with our respective clients.
We appreciate your continued partnership and regret any inconvenience our mutual clients may be experiencing during this time. If there’s anything more we can do to assist, please don’t hesitate to contact your Kaiser Permanente representative.