The 196-day strike of Kaiser Southern California mental healthcare workers is over. The 2,400 therapists, psychiatric nurses, social workers and psychologists won significant gains not just for themselves but for their patients in a time of an acute national mental healthcare crisis. They are members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
They outlasted Kaiser, the huge California-based health maintenance organization, with six and a half months of picket lines from Modesto to San Diego. They held rallies at Kaiser’s Southern California medical centers. They blockaded the Sunset Strip. They held a hunger strike, putting their own health on the line to improve care for patients and reverse Kaiser’s record of misconduct.
“There’s no doubt that Kaiser remains hostile to mental health care and to us, they fought us every step of the way. But this is still the best contract we’ve ever won, even though it took us more than six months to win it,” said Jim Clifford, a behavioral health counselor who has worked for Kaiser in San Diego since 2001…