Your Bargaining Team has been negotiating with Management since June 28. We’re happy to report that we’ve made significant progress on most issues, including the historic wage increases that Management reported in their bargaining update to you this week.

After taking about seven months to negotiate the technical and service agreements, Management expressed a desire to come to a quick agreement on your contract. While your Bargaining Team shares the same sentiment, we must ensure that our agreement is in the best interests of our members.

When we met with Management on September 10, MultiCare presented your Bargaining Team with a package proposal that was very close to what we believe will be the final agreement. However, we have significant concerns about the ultimatum presented regarding incentive pay plans. Management’s offer gave the team two options:

A. Keep the current incentive plan under Appendix G, which provides a double-time incentive when very specific metrics have been met. With this plan, Management does not have control when or if the plan is activated.​

B. OR Remove the current Appendix G incentive plan and replace it with the Spot Bonus Incentive Pay plan.

The Union’s proposal is that we improve the current Appendix G incentive plan while also adding the Spot Bonus Plan. We believe the Spot Bonus Plan has served our members and the community well, helping staff our hospital throughout the current crisis, but it should operate in conjunction with our current metrics-based plan.

In Management’s bargaining update this week, they have claimed that “operationally we only have the capacity to manage one incentive plan.” We are confused by this statement because, during negotiations over the technical contract, Management agreed to let Respiratory Therapists keep their metrics-based plan while still allowing them to add the Spot Bonus Incentive into their contract.

Why does Management think that Respiratory Therapists deserve both plans, but Registered Nurses do not? This question is the roadblock to a deal.

We’d also like to fact-check their claim that the Union rejected their offer. While we did express that a rejection was likely, we never officially rejected their offer. It was the Union’s intention to work through the incentive pay issue so we could reach an agreement.

Despite our frustration with Management’s misrepresentation of the facts, your Bargaining Team is still committed to working on reaching an agreement when we meet again on September 21 provided, however, that it’s a fair contract.

Bargaining Team: Holly Gindhart, Jill Piacitelli, Valina McGilvray