New union will strengthen mental health services

The Capital Times

The shock waves caused by Wisconsin’s history-making citizen protests are becoming increasingly evident. It clearly acted as a tipping point for the mental health employees at Journey Mental Health Center (formerly the Mental Health Center of Dane County) when both clinical and support staff reached a breaking point with management, and decided that they needed greater empowerment and a louder voice.

After a ten month Journey campaign the National Labor Relations Board in Milwaukee, who conducted the election, recently reported that seventy-two percent of the professional staff and 54% of support staff at Journey voting, supported unionization with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

While recognizing management’s commitment to serving increasing numbers of underserved clients, there was disagreement in how best to do this. Many Journey employees believed that management seemed content to define the therapists’ professional autonomy and best practice expertise too narrowly. Staff complained that management often ignored broad clinician input before initiating new client access and case management practices, such as higher caseloads and related quality care issues.

Staff pushback to confront ever increasing job add-ons and productivity pressures were also ignored. Bread and butter issues such as salary and benefit increases, however, were far down the list of concerns expressed. Paramount was staff’s demand to be heard and to be seen as important collaborators with specialized knowledge and skills to share. “We have the right and responsibility to express our opinions,” one staffer emphasized in a recent radio interview.

 Newsletters helped inform all 300+ staff about the pros and cons of the union. This information prompted discussions and debate at the agency’s nine separate workplaces. Gradually unions were viewed by most staff as an effective means of addressing their concerns.

Without a union presence top down management structures in organizations are common. It’s increasingly clear that a union can help bring up everybody in the organization. Every employee has a voice and can make a contribution.

 Every organization has both an instrumental and expressive side. The former is concerned largely with the financial resources of the agency while the expressive or social side requires more diverse staff knowledge and skill sets, including both relationship and solidarity building skills. Owing to their professional training, these interactive and community-building skills can often best be found within the clinical staff. An agency or program manager who glibly dismisses this powerful resource does so at his/her own peril. Union/management committees can help insure that all staff resources are used in the most balanced, effective and efficient manner.

After learning of the election results, those who led this effort expressed hope that their success will be an inspiration to other mental health professionals and service agencies.

The Journey Mental Health Center has a stellar and nationally recognized mental health program. It has established a brilliant record of serving the serious mentally ill while at the same time has demonstrated the capacity to serve a broad and diverse clientele. It continues to pioneer new and innovative regimens of care and treatment strategies.

As a mental health professional and program evaluator for over thirty years, I am convinced that unionization at Journey will only serve to strengthen an already outstanding mental health program.

William R. Benedict
Mental Health Advocate
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