Workers striking for 5 days at Kaiser

Thousands of mental health workers for Kaiser Permanente are expected to start a five-day statewide strike Monday to protest what they consider chronic understaffing leading to lengthy waits for treatment.

About 4,000 clinicians — psychologists, therapists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and addiction medicine specialists — represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers are scheduled to strike Monday through Friday. They’ll set up picket lines outside dozens of Kaiser facilities around the state, including busy Bay Area locations in San Francisco and Oakland.

Kaiser officials said in a statement that their facilities will remain open and that they have plans in place to ensure members will receive needed care, though some nonurgent appointments may be postponed.

The union contends that Kaiser members who need mental health care face unreasonable waits for therapy appointments because of the organization’s

failure to increase its staffing levels.

Kaiser says the union’s main concern is increasing its workers’ wages, which it says are already the highest in the state. Sal Rosselli, the union president, said negotiators are seeking pay increases as well as benefits packages equal to those given to other medical professionals.

Staffing for mental health care has been a lingering and contentious issue at Kaiser. In 2015, Kaiser agreed to pay a $4 million fine levied in 2013 by state regulators over inadequate access to its mental health services.

A threatened strike later that same year was averted with a last-minute deal that included an agreement to work together to improve mental health care. Since then, Kaiser says, it has increased the number of therapists by 30 percent despite an industry shortage.

The union contends that the ratio of mental health workers to members has not significantly increased. While Kaiser has increased the number of therapists, the union said, that growth has not kept pace with the rise in its membership.

“These 4,000 clinicians want to make adequate access to mental health care the civil rights issue of our time,” Rosselli said.

Kaiser officials criticized the decision to strike as well as the timing.

“It’s particularly disheartening that union leadership would call this strike during the holiday season, when many of our patients with mental health needs may be at their most vulnerable,” Kaiser said in a statement.