The RN bargaining team has been in contract negotiations since November 2019. Historically the Capital Medical Center (CMC) RNs have received the same or similar agreement as the Providence St. Peter’s RNs, who are also part of UFCW 21. This past year CMC proposed to retire the EIB program, but withdrew that proposal after seeing that the Providence RNs authorized a strike. Management wanted to avoid a strike authorization from occurring at CMC.

In 2020, we continued bargaining and focused on wages. A lot of progress was made at the bargaining table, until March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic started. UFCW 21 and CMC held off on bargaining during this time in order to figure out how to bargain virtually and there was uncertainty of how the pandemic would affect CMC. Since then UFCW 21 has bargained virtually and demanded that CMC meet with us virtually. Due to CMCs delays and unresponsiveness, we were not able to meet until October 19.

On October 19, we resumed bargaining via Zoom and made a lot of progress. We currently have five articles we are discussing: union membership, wages, nurse staffing committee, continuing education funds, and duration of the agreement. Our next session will be on November 5 and we hope to obtain a good contract.

In addition, we have informed the community/elected officials about CMC’s delays during bargaining. They have signed onto a letter, supporting the RN unit.

We will be holding a meeting via Zoom on Thursday, October 22, 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM to discuss bargaining and short staffing at CMC. Please contact your union rep, Nicholas Hefling if you have any questions or concerns: nhefling@ufcw21.org, Cell @ 360-951-5801, or Office line @ 206-436-6564.

“We made great strides and are getting close to an agreement.”

— Bonnie Verellen, RN

“We have stood firm on our priorities regarding wages, retro pay, and EIB. But in order to settle we have moved away from less important issues, which we will fight for in our next bargaining cycle.”

— Carol Cairone, RN

“We want to maintain competitive wages without takeaways from the contract.”

— Dennis Verellen, RN

Join our Meeting!

Thursday, October 22
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM

Contact your Bargaining Team or Union Rep for call-in details. Details will be also emailed out.