Mental Health Workers at Kaiser Hospitals Strike
March 1, 2015
(This article first appeared in the March-April 2015 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)
“Mental health, not corporate wealth!”
That’s the plea of 2,600 National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) mental health employees at Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California, who went on strike Jan. 12-19, protesting inadequate staffing conditions that lead to subpar patient care.
In the nation’s largest mental healthcare worker strike ever, psychologists and therapists protested Kaiser’s consistent failure to provide adequate staffing. More than 700 additional Kaiser employees joined the picket lines, including optical workers from Northern California and medical social workers, speech pathologists, audiologists, health educators and registered dietitians from Southern California. About eight APWU organizers walked the line with them in Walnut Creek on Jan. 14.