MEDIA STATEMENT
January 30, 2025
We are focused on providing high-quality care, as always
We look forward to continued engagement and will remain at the bargaining table until a fair and equitable agreement is reached.
After more than three months of striking, and during a time when mental health care needs have never been greater for our community, the National Union of Healthcare Workers continues to demand significantly higher pay in return for providing substantially less care. These demands are unreasonable and in direct contrast to our commitment to providing high-quality, affordable care to our members and patients.
It is important to note that we remain focused on caring for our members and patients throughout this unnecessary strike. Despite the Union’s repeated efforts to disrupt care, our robust external network of more than 13,000 providers and the more than 50% of NUHW-represented employees who returned to work allow us to deliver the high-quality mental health care our members expect. Any Kaiser Permanente member who needs an appointment is able to get one. Patients in crisis get care 24/7, those with urgent needs can get appointments within 48 hours, and patients seeking nonurgent care are offered an appointment within 6 days on average, which is better than the state’s requirement.
Kaiser Permanente resumed bargaining with NUHW with a desire to reach an agreement that continues to provide excellent compensation to our NUHW-represented employees while protecting our members' timely access to high-quality and affordable mental health care. Our strong offer, on the table since October 25, 2024, does this and provides protected time for activities such as planning, preparation, coordination, and administrative work.
Time outside of direct patient care
Our offer provides therapists with time set aside for activities such as planning, preparation, coordination, and administrative work. NUHW amended their proposal from seeking 10 hours per week not seeing patients — with 7 of those hours guaranteed — to seeking 7 hours guaranteed away from direct patient care. Even modified, NUHW's proposal could result in up to 19 hours of each week spent not seeing patients. This would reduce critically needed patient appointments by 15,000 every month and is simply unacceptable when the demand for mental health care continues to rise.
Wages and benefits
Our compensation offer takes into consideration industry standards and economic dynamics specific to the Southern California market. This market-based approach — the same approach we use all over the country — ensures all employees are supported in a way that is competitive for the geographic market they work in. Our philosophy at Kaiser Permanente is to pay employees up to 10% above market. On average NUHW-represented employees in Southern California are currently paid even higher than that. Our offer, which we further improved during our January 23rd bargaining session, would increase their above-market position even more.
NUHW's new wage proposal made at the January 16 session still demands a wage increase over the 3-year contract to move therapists' pay significantly above what their peers make in the Southern California market. The union's proposal is unsustainable and would substantially increase the cost of mental health care for our members and is counter to our commitment to keep health care affordable for our members.
Additionally, the union has claimed they do not receive a pension. This is not true. Our therapists do receive a pension, participating in a generous defined contribution pension plan that Kaiser Permanente matches up to 9%, nearly double the national average contribution. We have also offered a proposal in bargaining to strengthen our retirement medical benefit even further — a benefit that very few employers offer in the United States.
Next steps
We will remain at the bargaining table until a fair and equitable agreement is reached. We look forward to continued engagement and hope NUHW will come to the table ready to engage in meaningful, productive discussions that will result in a reasonable and mutually beneficial agreement. Until then, and as always, delivering high-quality care to meet the needs of our members and patients remains our top priority.
