MESSAGE TO OUR
EMPLOYEES
Kaiser Permanente and NUHW have important conversations about safety.
This message was sent on behalf of Lionel Sims, interim senior vice president, Human Resources, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals; and Priya Smith, chief employee human resources officer, The Permanente Medical Group; to Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California mental health and addiction medicine professionals on Wednesday, January 28.
To our mental health and addiction medicine professionals,
On Thursday, January 22, Kaiser Permanente and the National Union of Healthcare Workers bargaining teams met for the 25th time to continue negotiations for a new contract for our Northern California mental health and addiction medicine employees.
The NUHW bargaining team presented one proposal, which included changing a prior severance proposal as part of Reduction in Force (Article 11).
There was substantive dialogue about Safety (Article 34), specifically about policies and procedures in place for addressing patients who pose a threat to our clinicians. This is an important topic for Kaiser Permanente and for our mental health providers. Currently, every Kaiser Permanente location has a threat management plan in place. We are also in the process of implementing a 3-phased approach to streamlining and standardizing safety and threat management plans across the Northern California Region.
We agreed on one additional bargaining date, Friday, February 27, and are awaiting a response on another date in February. Our next bargaining sessions are Thursday, January 29, and Tuesday, February 10.
Thank you for your ongoing commitment to caring for our members and patients.
For more information, visit kp.org/nuhwbargaining.