travesty<\/a>. Its core was left to start again as NUHW.<\/p>\nBut not so much this time (though thousands of service workers still crossed picket lines). The registered nurses are represented by National Nurses United. Stationary Engineers, represented by IUOE Local 39, also held a sympathy strike with mental health workers and walked picket lines outside Kaiser medical centers in Oakland, Sacramento, Fresno, Santa Clara, and Santa Rosa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re proud to strike alongside registered nurses and engineers in the fight for human-centered care at Kaiser,\u201d said Joshua Gibbons, a therapist for Kaiser in Sacramento. \u201cMental health care is about human connection, and Kaiser is recklessly forging ahead with untested artificial intelligence that it sees potentially replacing us and the care we provide our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kaiser is determined to rescind past concessions; never mind that, in 2023, it was fined $200 million by the California Department of Managed Health Care for lacking sufficient behavioral health providers. And last month, Kaiser entered into a $31 million settlement with the US Department of Labor over violations of mental health parity laws.<\/p>\n
Alas, in our new world, where \u201cbillions\u201d have replaced \u201cmillions,\u201d Kaiser has $67 billion in reserves. Kaiser\u2019s CEO Greg Adams is reported to receive more than $20 million in compensation annually. Kaiser was forced to reimburse patients who had to pay out of pocket for mental health treatment they couldn\u2019t get from Kaiser \u2014 but, millions, no problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cKaiser has been punished and fined so many times for mental health violations; we can\u2019t let it get away with more,\u201d says Kaiser therapist Emma Olsen. \u201cOur patients need human therapists, who can work seamlessly with their doctors and have enough time to do our jobs right \u2014 and it\u2019s clear Kaiser doesn\u2019t want to pay for that level of care.\u201d Yet Kaiser wants to add AI to its array of extreme proposals \u2014 it is demanding \u201cflexibility,\u201d meaning all but a free hand in the introduction of AI.<\/p>\n
The workers have been without a contract since September. The sides remain far apart, with Kaiser sticking to proposals that would reverse patient care safeguards previously won by therapists and open the door to replacing therapist jobs with artificial intelligence and further outsourcing care. When it comes to AI, Kaiser is setting the stage to not just replace work done by therapists but to replace therapists themselves.<\/p>\n
The behemoth was once known as union-friendly; Kaiser Permanente was initially established, in collaboration with the unions, to provide medical services at Kaiser\u2019s shipyards, steel mills, and other facilities, due in part to Henry Kaiser\u2019s desire to treat all patients regardless of ability to pay, in the context of President Harry Truman\u2019s failed national health care plan. Workers supported it and were central to its origins and growth. But ultimately, \u201cit\u2019s a corporation,\u201d says Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the union. \u201cIt\u2019s the bottom line. Profit and competition.\u201d Kaiser is a competitor, an empire builder, but this costs money. It spends its surplus on expansion. Kaiser, which began in California and stayed there for decades, now has hospitals and clinics in Hawaii, Washington state, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. It\u2019s comparable to General Motors in the 1950s or even Amazon today.<\/p>\n
Health care is remaking the US economy. It\u2019s the sector that employs the most workers, surpassing manufacturing and services; the industry is the biggest employer in thirty-eight states. Manufacturing cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh have transitioned to health care as the driver of their economies. And hospitals are often the largest employers in small towns and rural settings. The industry will continue to grow (unlike manufacturing, it can\u2019t be offshored), despite cuts in federal health care spending.<\/p>\n
Twenty-four hundred workers is not so many, then. But they\u2019re 2,400 in a union that fights, and the health care workforce needs fighters. Their example is incalculable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cKaiser executives say they\u2019re not using AI to make patient care determinations, but they won\u2019t say what technology…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-241239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}