Multicare Capital Medical Center Service/Office/Technical - Bargaining Update!
/
Wednesday, October 2 marks our fourth bargaining date with MultiCare since we began negotiations for a 2024 contract for the Service, Office, & Technical union members at Capital Medical Center.
Transparently, our day began a bit slow in terms of meeting with management, with our Union team providing MultiCare with any remaining contract proposals we had in our court in the morning, and then waiting until just before the end of our scheduled time to receive proposals back from management.
Upon hearing back from management later that afternoon, we were presented with a number of responses on a few of the contract articles we’ve been exchanging back and forth with the employer; most importantly, wages.
Overall, it’s fair to say that we were shocked by MultiCare’s initial offer, not because it undercut our value and ignored regional competitors’ wage rates (as one can typically expect from an Employer’s first wage counter...), but instead, their proposal seemed to consider the rates of pay that competitors are paying in the greater South-Puget-Sound region, as well as the significant increases MultiCare workers in Pierce and King County won in union negotiations earlier this year.
There are varying increases throughout the numerous job classifications—mainly due to the varying market fluctuations for those classifications—but our bargaining team can say that while the wage proposal we received from Capital is not quite ready for us to agree to yet, it will serve to move market-based wage discussions much faster than we have seen at other bargaining tables!
We are looking forward to meeting with MultiCare for our next session on October 10 to continue working towards a strong contract for Capital Medical Center employees!
“We’re not all the way there yet, but we are cautiously optimistic!”
—Julie Hinchcliffe, HUC/Monitor Tech @ CapMC
Your Bargaining Team: Julie Hinchcliffe, HUC/Monitor Tech; Beatrix Sales, CS Tech; Lindsey Moorhead, Cath Lab Tech
Transparently, our day began a bit slow in terms of meeting with management, with our Union team providing MultiCare with any remaining contract proposals we had in our court in the morning, and then waiting until just before the end of our scheduled time to receive proposals back from management.
Upon hearing back from management later that afternoon, we were presented with a number of responses on a few of the contract articles we’ve been exchanging back and forth with the employer; most importantly, wages.
Overall, it’s fair to say that we were shocked by MultiCare’s initial offer, not because it undercut our value and ignored regional competitors’ wage rates (as one can typically expect from an Employer’s first wage counter...), but instead, their proposal seemed to consider the rates of pay that competitors are paying in the greater South-Puget-Sound region, as well as the significant increases MultiCare workers in Pierce and King County won in union negotiations earlier this year.
There are varying increases throughout the numerous job classifications—mainly due to the varying market fluctuations for those classifications—but our bargaining team can say that while the wage proposal we received from Capital is not quite ready for us to agree to yet, it will serve to move market-based wage discussions much faster than we have seen at other bargaining tables!
We are looking forward to meeting with MultiCare for our next session on October 10 to continue working towards a strong contract for Capital Medical Center employees!
“We’re not all the way there yet, but we are cautiously optimistic!”
—Julie Hinchcliffe, HUC/Monitor Tech @ CapMC
Your Bargaining Team: Julie Hinchcliffe, HUC/Monitor Tech; Beatrix Sales, CS Tech; Lindsey Moorhead, Cath Lab Tech
