SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Healthcare workers protest as former Vice President Joe Biden attends a fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of Kaiser Foundation board member Cynthia Telles. (Photo: Melanie Mason/Twitter)
With Protest Outside Big-Dollar Fundraiser, Healthcare Union Members Call on Biden to Back Their Fight Against Kaiser
"Joe Biden's statements about mental health will ring hollow if he can't make them directly to giant HMOs like Kaiser."
May 08, 2019
Workers with a California healthcare union gathered Wednesday to voice their disapproval as 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden attended a big-dollar fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of a Kaiser Foundation board member.
As HuffPost reported, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) "is locked in a bitter, yearslong fight with Kaiser over mental health staffing levels in the healthcare provider's California facilities."
Union representatives called on Biden--who is presenting himself on the campaign trail as a "union man"--to cancel the event, which was hosted by Kaiser Foundation board member Dr. Cynthia Telles. The Kaiser Foundation is a subsidiary of the healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente.
NUHW president Sal Rosselli said he never heard back from Biden's team.
"Kaiser, Kaiser, you can't hide, we can see your greedy side!" union members chanted outside of Telles's home.
According to an invitation seen by HuffPost, average contributions at the event ranged from $250 per person to $2,800--the maximum for individual donations in a presidential primary.
"The executive board members, the president of Kaiser Permanente--these executives are writing big checks to the vice president," Rosselli told ABC News ahead of Wednesday's event. "We'd ask him to use his influence with them to fix their mental healthcare system, to work with their clinicians to do it, to urge Cynthia Telles to meet with the psychologists--her fellow psychologists--to learn the inadequacies of the current system."
John Nelson, vice president of communications at Kaiser Permanente, attacked the union's demonstration in a statement shortly after the fundraiser began.
"This is a publicity stunt by union leadership disguised as a bargaining tactic aimed at disrupting a board member's event," Nelson said.
NUHW vice president Elizabeth White responded on Twitter, "This is no stunt!"
According to HuffPost, NUHW "has long alleged that Kaiser understaffs its mental health clinics, leading to long waits for vulnerable patients. The union has demanded that Kaiser hire more therapists and put pay and benefits on par with other employees in medical care."
On Twitter, NUHW said Biden's past "statements about mental health will ring hollow if he can't make them directly to giant HMOs like [Kaiser]."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Workers with a California healthcare union gathered Wednesday to voice their disapproval as 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden attended a big-dollar fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of a Kaiser Foundation board member.
As HuffPost reported, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) "is locked in a bitter, yearslong fight with Kaiser over mental health staffing levels in the healthcare provider's California facilities."
Union representatives called on Biden--who is presenting himself on the campaign trail as a "union man"--to cancel the event, which was hosted by Kaiser Foundation board member Dr. Cynthia Telles. The Kaiser Foundation is a subsidiary of the healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente.
NUHW president Sal Rosselli said he never heard back from Biden's team.
"Kaiser, Kaiser, you can't hide, we can see your greedy side!" union members chanted outside of Telles's home.
According to an invitation seen by HuffPost, average contributions at the event ranged from $250 per person to $2,800--the maximum for individual donations in a presidential primary.
"The executive board members, the president of Kaiser Permanente--these executives are writing big checks to the vice president," Rosselli told ABC News ahead of Wednesday's event. "We'd ask him to use his influence with them to fix their mental healthcare system, to work with their clinicians to do it, to urge Cynthia Telles to meet with the psychologists--her fellow psychologists--to learn the inadequacies of the current system."
John Nelson, vice president of communications at Kaiser Permanente, attacked the union's demonstration in a statement shortly after the fundraiser began.
"This is a publicity stunt by union leadership disguised as a bargaining tactic aimed at disrupting a board member's event," Nelson said.
NUHW vice president Elizabeth White responded on Twitter, "This is no stunt!"
According to HuffPost, NUHW "has long alleged that Kaiser understaffs its mental health clinics, leading to long waits for vulnerable patients. The union has demanded that Kaiser hire more therapists and put pay and benefits on par with other employees in medical care."
On Twitter, NUHW said Biden's past "statements about mental health will ring hollow if he can't make them directly to giant HMOs like [Kaiser]."
Workers with a California healthcare union gathered Wednesday to voice their disapproval as 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden attended a big-dollar fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of a Kaiser Foundation board member.
As HuffPost reported, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) "is locked in a bitter, yearslong fight with Kaiser over mental health staffing levels in the healthcare provider's California facilities."
Union representatives called on Biden--who is presenting himself on the campaign trail as a "union man"--to cancel the event, which was hosted by Kaiser Foundation board member Dr. Cynthia Telles. The Kaiser Foundation is a subsidiary of the healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente.
NUHW president Sal Rosselli said he never heard back from Biden's team.
"Kaiser, Kaiser, you can't hide, we can see your greedy side!" union members chanted outside of Telles's home.
According to an invitation seen by HuffPost, average contributions at the event ranged from $250 per person to $2,800--the maximum for individual donations in a presidential primary.
"The executive board members, the president of Kaiser Permanente--these executives are writing big checks to the vice president," Rosselli told ABC News ahead of Wednesday's event. "We'd ask him to use his influence with them to fix their mental healthcare system, to work with their clinicians to do it, to urge Cynthia Telles to meet with the psychologists--her fellow psychologists--to learn the inadequacies of the current system."
John Nelson, vice president of communications at Kaiser Permanente, attacked the union's demonstration in a statement shortly after the fundraiser began.
"This is a publicity stunt by union leadership disguised as a bargaining tactic aimed at disrupting a board member's event," Nelson said.
NUHW vice president Elizabeth White responded on Twitter, "This is no stunt!"
According to HuffPost, NUHW "has long alleged that Kaiser understaffs its mental health clinics, leading to long waits for vulnerable patients. The union has demanded that Kaiser hire more therapists and put pay and benefits on par with other employees in medical care."
On Twitter, NUHW said Biden's past "statements about mental health will ring hollow if he can't make them directly to giant HMOs like [Kaiser]."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.