Rejoice, Angelenos, can finally go back to therapy!
If you are one of the 4.9 million Kaiser Permanente members in Southern California who have been unable to see your regular therapist since mental health workers began striking in October 2024, the good news is that the strike is finally over. The open-ended strike that stretched on for a brutal six-and-a-half months became the longest strike by mental health workers in U.S. history. The 196-day work stoppage included thousands of therapists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, and social workers in the Southern California region. With nearly 10 million members across the state, Kaiser Permanente is the largest healthcare provider in California.
The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) voted Thursday, May 8, to ratify a new four-year contract, which ensures that workers will receive increased wages and benefits, as well as dedicated work hours outside of patient care. According to NUHW’s press release, Kaiser only guaranteed full-time therapists two hours per week to perform “critical patient duties” prior to the contract’s ratification. Those critical duties include making appointment notes, responding to patient calls and messages, and designing treatment plans. Therapists will now have a guaranteed five hours per week, which is a significant improvement, but still considerably lower than the seven guaranteed hours given to Kaiser therapists’ Northern California counterparts…