Our Capital Medical Center (Service, Office, & Technical Unit) bargaining team are excited to announce that we’ve officially kicked-off negotiations for our 2024 contract on Friday, September 13.

We have watched as union workers at MultiCare across Washington State spent the last nine months of this year achieving huge wins through determination and solidarity at the bargaining table, and we’re all eager to keep the wins coming in Olympia!

Although we began our bargain with only a half-day of availability to meet with Management, we knew it was important for us to maximize our time and get the process started with some high momentum, proposing a significant number of Articles right away! Besides just the number of proposals we presented to management, we also took a bit of an atypical approach in our first pass; providing Capital Medical Center with some Articles won at other MultiCare tables just a few months ago, and even working out existing language in our contract to make them reflective of many of the benefits that MultiCare workers in King and Pierce County secured over their last few contract cycles.

Despite how much we hear MultiCare talk about ‘alignment’ between their hospital systems and our union contracts, it wasn’t necessarily a surprise when Management indicated that they may not prefer it in the context of our contract here at Capital. It’s difficult not to speculate about whether this is because many of these Articles work to OUR benefit, rather than theirs!

While we have not received their formal response to our initial proposals just yet, we’re ready to continue working hard for many of these same benefits, and dedicated to achieving a strong contract for the dedicated Service, Office, and Technical workers at Capital Medical Center. In an effort to keep the momentum going, we’re hopeful to finalize and present our proposal on our wage scales as early as our next sessions on September 17 or 20.

We know that the sooner we get to an agreement with MultiCare, the sooner we all get the wages and benefits we deserve out of this negotiation!

“We’ve looked at other contracts, we’ve looked at other hospital’s wages- and we know we’re far behind! We don’t want to just catch up, but it’s time for us to get ahead!” —Julie Hinchcliff, HUC/Monitor Tech