The Brief

Nearly 2,400 Kaiser Permanente mental health workers in Southern California say they’re ready to start picketing Monday if the health care provider can't meet demands aimed at reducing employee turnover and improving patient care.

Psychologists, social workers, therapists and other mental health professionals overwhelmingly approved the strike authorization early this month.

“A lot of clinicians are saying, ‘Enough is enough,’” Marisela Calvillo, a Kaiser psychiatric counselor told LAist. “You know, like, treat mental health like you would in every other department. Make it something that is more based off of quality and not the quantity of patients.”

Calvillo, who has worked for Kaiser more than two years, said she and other counselors are working to prepare their patients for a possible strike by encouraging them to advocate for themselves to receive care if appointments are canceled.

In a statement, Kaiser said it’s taking the looming work stoppage seriously.

“We are making the necessary preparations to enable our members to have access to mental health and addiction medicine services if the union calls on our mental health professionals to walk away from their patients,” a company spokesperson said in an email.

Worker demands

Kaiser mental health workers say they are seeing between 10-18 patients a day and are not getting enough time to manage their duties outside of client appointments.

They said they want the HMO to provide workers seven hours of guaranteed time per week to handle things like sending emails, filling out patient charts and other duties.

Union members who spoke with LAist said therapists are regularly staying at work hours after their shifts have ended in order to keep up with the workload.

“A lot of clinicians have given feedback about burnout, and we see clinicians leave all of the time,” Calvillo said.

Fred Seavey, a researcher with the National Union of Healthcare Workers, said that plays out in the data on employee turnover.

From 2021 through August 2024, Kaiser hired 1,508 new therapists, Seavey said. But one in four of those newly hired therapists has already left Kaiser.

Seavey said one Southern California Kaiser patient reported having three different therapists in one year because the first two quit.

That kind of turnover is bad for patient care, Seavey said.

“Imagine going into your therapist and telling your story and then building up that relationship. And then your therapist says, ‘Hey, by the way, this is your last appointment because I’m leaving Kaiser.'”

The union members are also demanding the HMO restore pensions and agree to better pay.

In an Oct. 3 email, a Kaiser spokesperson said its proposal includes six hours a week for planning and preparation as well as an 18% wage increase over four years.

The role of a $200 million settlement

The possible strike comes about a year after state regulators hit Kaiser with a $50 million fine for failing to provide timely access to mental health care and other problems.

As part of the settlement agreement, Kaiser committed to investing an additional $150 million over five years to expand and improve behavioral health care for members.

Seavey said Kaiser has yet to finalize a corrective action plan in response to the settlement agreement.

What we know from previous strikes

During the National Union of Healthcare Workers’ Northern California strike in 2022, Kaiser canceled nearly 112,000 appointments affecting more than 63,000 enrollees, according to a settlement agreement between Kaiser and the California Department of Managed Health Care.

According to court documents, thousands of those appointments were rescheduled, but Seavey said some patients were given classes rather than therapeutic appointments.

He said those basic courses didn’t provide the same level of care as an individual therapy session.

The 2022 strike in Northern California lasted about 10 weeks. Those union members ultimately won better wages and more protected time to fill out patients’ charts and handle other duties outside of appointments.

What’s next?

The last scheduled day for negotiations between the union and Kaiser was Thursday of this week. If an agreement cannot be reached, mental health workers are prepared to go on strike on Monday, Oct. 21.

In a news release, the National Union of Healthcare Workers said it was calling on state regulators to require Kaiser to let its Southern California members know about their rights to receive ongoing care during a possible work stoppage.

LAist followed up with questions about Kaiser’s contingency plan if the strike happens and will update this story accordingly.

Thousands of students from schools across Los Angeles walked out Wednesday in peaceful protest of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

The Los Angeles Unified School District estimated 4,400 students from about two dozen schools participated.

“ I think it's really empowering that we aren't being discouraged to [protest], but it's also really discouraging to have to live through this,” said Roybal Learning Center senior Melisa. 

“The reason I came out is 'cause we're so young and I feel like people always think that like young people don't have a voice and in reality we have one of the strongest voices,” said Jazlyn Garcia, a senior at  Alliance Gertz-Ressler High School. “I want people to go out and vote for midterms, pre-register to vote.”

Leonna, a senior at Downtown Magnets High School and daughter of immigrants from Cambodia, said she was thinking of her neighbors.  “We need to protect the people that make sure that the economy is running and make sure that our lives are the way that they are every day.”

Students said the Trump administration's immigration raids threaten their families, communities and education.

LAUSD estimated that several thousand students walked out.

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Sabrina Sanchez

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LAist

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Students said they were concerned for family and neighbors.

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Sabrina Sanchez

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LAist

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Alexis, a senior at Brío College Prep, said administrators locked down his campus after agents detained a nearby fruit vendor. “He was a part of our community,” Alexis said. “He would always be out there selling fruits to us after school.”

San Fernando Valley students at more than 40 schools plan to walk out Friday.

“Los Angeles Unified supports the rights of our students to advocate for causes important to them,” a district spokesperson wrote in a statement to LAist. “However, we are concerned for student safety at off-campus demonstrations as schools are the safest place for students.”

The district encouraged students to exercise their rights in on-campus discussions and demonstrations.

The University of Southern California board of trustees has appointed interim president Beong-Soo Kim to be its 13th full president.

Kim was named as the interim leader in February 2025 and began the role this summer. He most recently served as USC’s senior vice president and general counsel, and as a lecturer at the law school. Prior to joining USC, he worked at Kaiser Permanente and was a federal prosecutor for the Central District of California.

Kim succeeds Carol Folt, who was brought on to stabilize the university following a series of scandals under the administration before hers. She formally stepped down from her role in July, following criticism of her ability to handle student protests and concerns over fiscal stewardship.

Soon after his term began, Kim oversaw the university’s effort to manage a $200 million deficit, which also led to hundreds of layoffs.

“We did have to make some difficult decisions last year with respect to our budget and layoffs,” Kim told LAist. “And I'm really pleased that as a result of those difficult decisions, we're now in a much stronger financial position and really for a number of months have been really focusing on the opportunities that we see on the horizon.”

In a call with LAist, and joined by USC board chair Suzanne Nora Johnson, Kim touched on bright spots and some of his priorities. He also touched on the relationship between USC and the Trump administration before a sudden ending to the call.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

LAist: You've talked about addressing the mass layoffs and budget challenges. What do you see as the way forward?

Beong-Soo Kim: Our research expenditures have actually been going up over the last year, over the last couple of years. We're focusing on: How do we provide the best possible educational value to our students? We're focusing on how to maintain and strengthen our academic culture of excellence, open dialogue and engagement with different viewpoints.

And we're also really kind of leaning into artificial intelligence and asking questions as a community about how we incorporate AI responsibly into our education, into our operations, into our research. And there are obviously a lot of important ethical questions that we're working on, and it's really an quite an exciting time to be in the position that I'm in.

What are you excited for?

Well, a couple things that we're really looking forward to are, as part of the anniversary of the United States, we're going to be hosting a National Archives exhibition [of] founding documents in late April. We're also looking forward to helping host the L.A. Olympics in 2028. We have our 150th anniversary coming up in 2030 as a university.

So there's a lot that's on the horizon. We also have the Lucas Museum opening up across the street later this year and, of course, George Lucas is one of our most beloved Trojan alumni. So there's so much vitality, so much energy on the campus right now.

USC has, for the most part, avoided the sort of conflicts that the University of California system and elite private institutions across the country have had with the Trump administration. What can you share about how you plan to manage USC’s relationship with the federal government?

Well, we really make an effort to engage with all levels of government, as well as foundations, the private sector, community groups. That kind of engagement is really more important nowadays. Universities can't just go off on their own. It's important for us to partner and find opportunities to work with others. And that's what we've been doing.

And that's part of the reason why I think that our research has continued to go strongly. And I give a lot of the credit to our faculty and researchers who can continue submitting grant applications and continue to do research in areas that are critically important to the benefit of our community, our nation, and our world. And I think that we -—

Suzanne Nora Johnson: —Actually I'm so sorry, but we have to complete the board meeting, and we've got to run. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. We'll be in touch. Bye. Thanks. Bye.

Huntington Beach will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision striking down the city’s controversial voter ID law.

What’s the backstory?

Huntington Beach voters approved a measure in 2024 allowing the city to require people to show ID when casting a ballot. That contradicts state law — voters in California are asked to provide ID when they register to vote but generally not at polling places.

The ensuing court battle

The state and a Huntington Beach resident promptly sued the city over the voter ID law and won an appeals court ruling striking down the law. The California Supreme Court declined to review the decision earlier this month. The state also passed a law prohibiting cities from implementing their own voter ID laws.

Then, the City Council voted unanimously this week to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in.

Does the city have a shot?

The Supreme Court gets 7,000 to 8,000 requests to review cases each year. The Court grants about 80 of these requests, so the city’s chances of getting the court’s attention are statistically slim.

There’s also a question of whether or not the city’s voter ID case meets the Court’s criteria for review — SCOTUS addresses questions of federal law. Mayor Casey McKeon said it does, in a news release, noting a 2008 Supreme Court decision that upheld a state’s voter ID law — in Indiana. But Huntington Beach is a city, and the question in its voter ID case is whether or not a city can implement its own requirements for voting, even if it clashes with state law.

Go deeper

• Huntington Beach's controversial voter ID law is illegal
• Huntington Beach clashes with California over voter ID requirement in court
• HB Mayor defends Voter ID measure as Gov. Newsom seeks to ban it
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  The Trump Administration wants your confidential voter data. What’s behind their battle with CA and other states?