About a dozen Maui and Oahu behavioral health care workers and union reps line the sidewalk and wave signs fronting the Kaiser Permanente Maui Lani Medical Office in late August as part of the statewide open-ended strike for more staffing, better wages and increased access to mental health services for patients. The Maui News / DAKOTA GROSSMAN photo
After walking picket lines for nearly six months, Kaiser Permanente mental health clinicians in Hawaii decided to accept a new contract agreement, bringing the strike to an end.
After years of negotiations and concerns over pay and understaffing that eventually led to psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and chemical dependency counselors going on strike on Aug. 29, members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers voted “overwhelmingly” on Saturday to ratify a contract that improves wages without the cuts that the union says Kaiser was proposing.
“I’m excited to return to work and treat my patients, but I’m disappointed that Kaiser still devalues mental health care and treats its patients in Hawaii as second class,” said Rachel Kaya, a psychologist for Kaiser on Maui, in a news release Sunday. “I’m so grateful for our community that has supported our strike and kept us going all these months by contributing to our strike fund. Our strike is over, but our fight to make Kaiser deliver timely, accessible mental health care for the people of Hawai’i is only just beginning.”
Some of the key contract details accepted include an extra $1.50 per hour for bilingual therapists to help Kaiser meet the needs of non-English speakers and wage increases of at least 3 percent in 2023 and 2024 and 2 percent in 2025. Prior to last week, Kaiser’s offer would have resulted in wage freezes this year for a majority of therapists, the union said.
The contract also includes preserving pension benefits for new hires.
It’s the first contract for the Kaiser mental health therapists since they formed a union in 2018. According to Kaiser, negotiations began in January 2020.
“Kaiser Permanente Hawaii is pleased with the outcome of the NUHW ratification vote and appreciates our mental health staff’s confidence in this fair and equitable agreement,” KP said in a statement on Sunday. “We are glad to have them back, doing what they do best, caring for patients. We are also extremely grateful to the many community providers who opened additional appointments during the strike to ensure Kaiser Permanente members received the care they needed.”
Kaiser employs about 50 mental health care workers in Hawaii, and the union had raised concerns that this was not enough to care for Kaiser’s more than 260,000 patients in Hawaii.
The health care provider, however, said in a labor update on its website that fewer than 8 percent of its members seek mental health services in a given year, based on its internal data from 2020 and 2021. It added that it has more behavioral health staff in addition to the union-represented clinicians and is continuing to recruit and hire.
With Kaiser losing some therapists to resignation, the Hawaii Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund allowed its members with Kaiser insurance to switch carriers during the strike if they reported being unable to access timely mental health care.
Clinicians, who are planning to head back to work Tuesday, said there is still more work to do to improve mental health services.
“This contract is a lot better than what Kaiser was offering when we started our strike last August, but it’s still not enough to address the understaffing crisis that forces Kaiser members to wait months for mental health therapy,” said Andrea Kumura, a social worker at Kaiser’s Waipio Clinic and member of the NUHW Bargaining Committee, in a news release. “I’m proud that we took a stand for patients, and I’m ready to keep fighting to make Kaiser deliver mental health care that meets the needs of its members.”
About a dozen Maui and Oahu behavioral health care workers and union reps line the sidewalk and wave signs fronting the Kaiser Permanente Maui Lani Medical Office in late August as part of the statewide open-ended strike for more staffing, better wages and increased access to mental health services for patients. The Maui News / DAKOTA GROSSMAN photoToday's breaking news and more in your inbox
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