Southern California Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists plan to go on strike Oct. 21 after union negotiations with the large medical provider stalled over better pay and more staffing.
About 2,400 psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, addiction medicine counselors, and marriage and family therapists from San Diego to Bakersfield are expected to walk off their jobs at the company’s 16 hospitals and nearly 200 medical offices.
The workers, represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, are asking for more staffing, more pay, and more time during the week to work on patient cases and paperwork.
Their contract expired Sept. 30, before the two sides could agree on a new one. A bargaining session was held Thursday, but no agreement was reached, according to the union….