On Tuesday, October 27, the Support Services Bargaining Team—which represents housekeeping, phlebotomy, endoscopy techs, surgery, food services, CNAs, imaging assistants, emergency department techs, HUCs, emergency department techs—met and bargained with Providence Centralia Hospital. The team proposed articles around bargaining unit recognition, union access to the workplace, union membership, grievance procedure, notification of sale, and duration of the contract. These articles are standard in union contracts and strategically we always start with easier non-economic articles in order to reach agreements and then move on to more contentious articles like wages and EIB/PTO.

The Hospital was willing to discuss adding more classifications to the bargaining unit which were not part of the union authorization vote. We have heard from several employees that they wish to be part of the Union, so we are invested in adding those classifications to the unit. On the other hand, the Hospital wishes to circumvent employees’ union rights. They wish to limit the union representative’s access to the Hospital, prevent access to new hire orientation, and limit the number of union stewards.

It is clear the Hospital wishes to undercut our Union’s strength! We must show the Hospital that Support Services wants their Union present throughout the workplace in order to have a strong and empowered unit!

One way we can show that we are united and willing to fight for our union rights is by participating in the car sign action. If you are interested in participating and distributing signs to your coworkers/ community, please reach out to your union representative, Erin McCoy @ 206-436-6598 (office line).

We will also have a Contract Action Team meeting via Zoom on November 19 @ 5:30 PM where we will be talking about bargaining/workplace issues.

Our next bargaining date is on November 18.

In Solidarity, Your Support Service Bargaining Team: Necole Moore, EVS; Kaycee Grimm, Phlebotomist; Kim Jorgenson, ED HUC; Laura Norton, Endo Tech