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.

State and local lawmakers are joining immigrant rights groups in urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill that would bar California law enforcement from moonlighting for ICE.

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, who represents Angelenos from South L.A. to Mar Vista, introduced AB 1537 in January. If implemented, the bill would ban California police, sheriffs and other law enforcement from taking on second jobs that involve “arresting, detaining, transporting, or deporting” people.

The bill has made its way through the state legislature and is now on the governor’s desk. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto it.

At a press conference outside L.A. City Hall on Wednesday, José Madera, who directs the Pasadena Job Center, pointed to multiple deaths involving federal immigration agents in recent months — from Minneapolis to Houston — and to a recent shooting in Austin. “We don't need our local police to be part of that violence,” he said.

“ICE is a lawless, rogue agency that is terrorizing our communities, separating our families and kidnapping our neighbors,” said Bruno Huizar, supervising policy manager at the California Immigrant Policy Center. “Governor Newsom must sign AB 1537 into law to protect Californians.”

L.A. City councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, whose own parents were undocumented, said it pained him to see immigrant parents go to work and to church in fear of being separated from their children.

“If you’re a public servant, you should be serving the public — not helping ICE tear families apart,” he added in a follow-up email statement.

The bill, dubbed “No side jobs for ICE” by its proponents, would also require officers to report secondary employment offers relating to immigration to their employers.

“If a law enforcement agent gets a conditional offer from an immigration enforcement agency, that will be part of their employment records. And that will be subject to a public records act request,” said Shiu-Ming Cheer, a licensed attorney at the California Immigration Policy Center. “This is aimed at bringing transparency, so that we know how many officers are actually getting offers to work as an ICE agent or a Border Patrol agent.”

The Peace Officers Research Association of California, which represents officers across the state, has spoken out against the bill, arguing that “policies like this don’t improve public safety.” The Los Angeles Police Protective League did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

The bill is part of a growing effort to bar local law enforcement from engaging in the ongoing mass deportation effort. The L.A. City Council approved a motion in March, barring city employees from holding second jobs with federal immigration enforcement agencies.

In Santa Ana, the City Council recently adopted a policy that prohibits employees from obtaining outside work that involves federal immigration enforcement activities.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill aimed at protecting children who are abused.

The law, which went into effect this week, is named “Gabriel’s Law,” after Gabriel Fernandez — an 8-year-old boy in Palmdale who died in 2013 after being tortured and abused by his mother and her boyfriend.

“It devastated the community. Still has,” said State Assemblymember Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale), who worked on legislation related to Gabriel’s case for years. “It hasn't gone away, right? It’s something we still acknowledge.”

Since Fernandez’s death, the Antelope Valley has seen a number of high-profile child deaths at the hands of their parents.

The new law requires social workers to make sure a child gets emergency medical care when needed, and it makes it easier to prosecute social workers who knowingly falsify records.

Officials said there had been warning signs about Fernandez’s abuse, but social workers with the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services failed to follow up on them. The high-profile case prompted internal reforms in the agency.

What happened to Gabriel

Gabriel died in May 2013, after months of abuse from his mother and her boyfriend. He was found with a number of injuries, including a fractured skull, broken ribs and BB pellets lodged in his body. His mother and her boyfriend were both sentenced.

A teacher had reported signs of abuse to the county, but social workers did not remove him from the home. Then they ended the investigation. Prosecutors charged the social workers with child abuse, but the charges were later dismissed.

“He was literally tortured. And there were many, many, many documented events, and there are many encounters that he had with people that lacked follow-up,” Lackey said.

What does the law change?

Before this week, the law said that social workers may authorize care if a child needs immediate emergency care, but did not require it. Gabriel’s law requires a social worker to secure medical care for a child.

“ They call for an ambulance or escort the child to an emergency room— make sure a physician has the opportunity to provide some level of remedy and documentation of the injury,” Lackey said.

It also clarifies the law so that social workers who are guilty of falsifying or destroying public records can be imprisoned or fined.

Why did the law take so long to change?

Lackey’s previous legislative efforts related to Fernandez’s case failed over the years. He introduced at least five different pieces of legislation that failed to advance.

“I'm not even saying that I blame the pushback and the concern, because if you're too aggressive, there's a tendency to accuse people of wrongdoing when they are not guilty of wrongdoing, so we wanted to make sure that the balance was reasonable,” he said.

Lackey terms out this year. “We're trying to do something as a community to not only pay tribute to [Gabriel], but to prevent it from reoccurring,” he said.

The Los Angeles Fire Department has completed its investigation into the cause of the Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights but was unable to determine what caused it. 

In a press release, LAFD said the June 17 fire was caused by an “electrical event” that occurred on the roof of the building, “adjacent to a section of solar panels.” Despite a “comprehensive investigation,” the department could not determine what caused the electrical event.

“The Department’s thoughts remain with all those impacted by this deeply tragic incident,” Arson and Fire Investigation Chief Thomas Raymond said in a release.

In response to the inconclusive investigation, District 14 Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said, “LAFD’s finding that the cause remains undetermined does nothing to alleviate what Boyle Heights residents have endured and are still carrying: months of health concerns and disruption, along with unanswered questions about whether this site can safely operate again.”

“The fact that we still cannot explain how this catastrophe began is yet another reason I will continue opposing any permits to rebuild this facility,” Jurado said.

Recently, the LA City Council voted to withhold rebuilding permits for the Lineage warehouse until after the Los Angeles Fire Department completed its investigation. Earlier this month, Lineage Chief Executive Officer Greg Lehmkuhl told Boyle Heights Beat and The LA Local that the company had not decided whether to rebuild, saying, “We’re still focused on holding the right people accountable here and making sure that we’re continuing to support the community.”

The CEO’s comments came after Lineage sued solar power provider Altus Power, Inc. and its contractor, blaming them for the fire. Altus Power and its contractor dispute those claims.

In a statement following the completed investigation, Lineage said, “Today’s report from the Los Angeles Fire Department validates what we have known all along: This was a solar fire.”

The fire and subsequent cleanup of millions of pounds of rotting food caused a flood of issues for residents living in Boyle Heights, East LA and surrounding communities, including an infestation of flies and pests, nausea and headaches, higher utility bills and other health concerns. 

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Boyle Heights Beat senior reporter Alejandra Molina and LA Local reporter Christopher Damien contributed to this report.

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