A few weeks ago WhidbeyHealth proposed increasing current employees below $18/hour to $18/hour and changing the base rate for all classifications to $18/hour. Your bargaining committee reviewed the proposal and identified that this would result in wage compression. For example, a Housekeeper II at Step 8 would be earning the same as a Housekeeper II at Step 0-7.

As a committee, we decided that we could agree to increasing current employees to $18/hour, but we must begin to bargain over wages for the rest of the bargaining unit immediately to address the wage compression. Per the CBAs, we are supposed to go back to the bargaining table in June 2022 for the Pro/Tech/LPN unit and October 2022 for the Service/Support unit. Our request to Whidbey is that we go to the bargaining table in January 2022 for both units.

Additionally, we believe it is divisive and unfair that they are offering non-union employees a retention bonus and not union employees. Given that, we are proposing that all bargaining unit employees receive a retention bonus! We are also asking WhidbeyHealth to provide sign-on bonuses to new hires in order to recruit new staff and reject that the base rates for new hires increase to $18/hour. Increasing the base rates will create a greater wage compression for current employees. We believe the better approach is for WhidbeyHealth to provide sign-on bonuses. Until this date, WhidbeyHealth has not approached us with any sign-on bonuses for any union classifications.

WhidbeyHealth needs to acknowledge the work that current employees have done in the past year and a half during a pandemic and must respect us as workers! We need wage increases for ALL and bonuses which will retain and recruit staff!