Post updated at 9:17 a.m. to include response from a Bert Nash spokesperson.

Citing burnout, high turnover and a desire for a guaranteed seat at the table, clinical and office staff at Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center announced Tuesday they’ve begun the process of forming a union.

Bert Nash employees said in a news release from International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 304 they want to provide effective and quality services to the community members they serve and that “Our working conditions are your healing conditions.”

“Rather than prioritizing clinical outcomes, the executive team prioritizes productivity,” the news release read. “Administration requires staff to maintain large caseloads that are unrealistic for the level of care being offered. This results in staff experiencing burnout and struggling to keep up with all that is necessary for the provision of quality services.”

Several current and former Bert Nash workers spoke with the Times in advance of their announcement to launch Community Mental Health Workers United.

Thomas Bowman, a housing case manager, has worked at Bert Nash for almost six years.

Bert Nash has experienced immense growth during Bowman’s tenure, including the advent of the Treatment and Recovery Center of Douglas County, the Mobile Response Team and Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic certification. Tax filings show the nonprofit organization’s revenue grew from $12.9 million in 2020 to $22.7 million in 2022.

Bowman said over time he’d seen more siloing among departments, a lack of transparency in policy and procedure implementation, and feelings that management conveys a “just deal with it” attitude at times when frontline employees voice concerns.

“And when I started, Bert Nash was like 150 people, and now it’s around 400 or so employees and honestly, at times, it seems like the people in the management positions are overwhelmed and struggling to adapt to those changes,” Bowman said.

He said he viewed unionization as a means to be a part of solutions while collaborating with people across the organization “who are really doing the work to be at that table to help make those changes better for all of us.”

Howard Callihan has worked with unhoused people in Lawrence for 11 years, including five at Bert Nash. He said “systems have been at capacity” since the COVID-19 pandemic. High employee turnover and large caseloads have made it more difficult for Bert Nash staff to balance client needs with the agency’s priorities.

They view unionization as having the potential to reduce turnover while increasing compensation transparency and potential.

“Nearly everyone who comes to this kind of work does it out of a sense of commitment to this community, and we need to be treated as stakeholders regarding our working conditions,” Callihan said in a written statement. “I have coworkers who have died, had sometimes permanent mental health breaks. Friends who burnt out, left the field and ended up homeless.”

Unionization would empower employees like herself who feel they currently lack democratic power in the workplace, said Rachel Sandle, a child and family therapist at Bert Nash. Sandle said in eight months there she had seen policy proposals presented to her and her coworkers for feedback but ultimately realized the decision to implement some of those changes had already been made by executive management. Sandle said she works in an environment that leaves her feeling like meeting productivity is more important to management than the people doing the work.

“It feels like we’re only as good as the revenue that we generate for the agency, like we’re not worth investing in unless we’re making lots of money for the agency,” Sandle said.

They said setting working conditions through a collective bargaining unit could eliminate feelings of powerlessness among employees who fear policies and procedures might change at any time and when that happens they should “just take it on the chin.”

“I feel powerless at my workplace, and that’s exhausting, and I don’t want to leave,” Sandle said. “But, I know that I can’t sustain feeling this way at work forever. And if we had, you know, a way, a guaranteed way to advocate for ourselves, a guaranteed seat at the table, I think that that would really help that feeling that I have. I think it would make me want to stay and make it sustainable. And I know I’m not the only person who feels that way.”

Sincere Madrid said he was a new unit coordinator on the front desk of the TRC when current and former employees were sharing concerns about working conditions at the TRC and within the county’s MRT. Madrid said unionization appealed to him because it would allow him to advocate for others’ needs, including improved safety at the TRC and better wages for frontline staff members such as behavioral health specialists, who work directly with patients.

“I know a lot of people have been asking for raises lately, but they’ve been getting kind of stonewalled on it,” Madrid said.

The effort to unionize is also receiving support from outside Bert Nash. Wolfie Lopez said they left employment as a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or DBT, therapist in July after less than a year.

Lopez said she was surrounded at Bert Nash by competent, caring, supportive coworkers on the adult outpatient therapy team who cared about their clients and the populations they served; however, Lopez blamed management for a toxic work environment filled with uncertainties and unreasonable workload expectations, as well as fears about being fired for asking too many questions. Lopez said through tears that those experiences contributed to an exacerbation of her mental health symptoms, including suicidal thoughts, which she hadn’t experienced for more than a decade.

Lopez said their caseload topped 27 clients, but their manager hoped Lopez would grow their caseload to 30.

“At one point, when I went to talk to her about my burnout, I was like crying in her office because I was so burned out,” Lopez said. “And at the end of the meeting, she just said, ‘Well, when can you take more clients?’”

Lopez said she believed unionization could provide better mental health outcomes for employees and clients that would benefit the community as a whole, and that’s why she’s still “tangentially involved.”

“I hope that this leads to sustainable change where there’s not as much burnout and turnover, because I know that that burnout and turnover is hard for not only us and our stability, but it’s also really hard for our clients,” Lopez said.

Kevin Elliott said he’d been a Bert Nash client for eight years. He supports employees’ unionization efforts. He said he believed if collective bargaining been in place in 2018, it might’ve prevented the throng of resignations by DBT therapists at Bert Nash that disrupted Elliott’s and others’ mental health care.

“I believe that with collective bargaining, there will not only be a voice for the therapist, but there will be a voice for the patients, the consumer,” Elliott said.

Payton Smith, organizer for IBEW Local 304, said Bert Nash workers care about the Lawrence community.

“They just want to give the best care they can, but they feel like management constantly gets in the way of that,” Smith said.

Smith said next steps included working to obtain voluntary recognition of the union by Bert Nash’s upper management or conducting a National Labor Relations Board election among clinical and office staff members, which Smith estimated at about 300.

Jeff Burkhead, a spokesperson for Bert Nash, responded with a statement by email: “As part of our dedication to our team members and community, we support efforts that align with the best interests of our staff and the people we serve. This includes being open to a variety of available strategies to enhance our work environment and service delivery. As always, open communication remains a priority for our organization, and we are continually engaged in gathering more information to make informed decisions.”

Tricia Masenthin (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at tmasenthin (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.

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