Our Union Bargaining Team [L-R]: Julie Hinchcliff, HUC/Monitor Tech; Lindsey Moorhead, Cath Lab Tech; Beatrix Sales, CS Tech

Our MultiCare Capital Medical Center Bargaining Team met with Management twice last week, on Tuesday the 17 and Friday the 20 to continue negotiations on our 2024 Service, Office, & Technical Union contract. At our initial session prior to this week, we worked hard to get language & economic proposals into the Employer’s court as soon as possible, so we were eager to get to the process of exchanging proposals back and forth with MultiCare. Scheduling two sessions in the same week did not let us down in achieving this goal!

At the end of our second session on the Friday, we’re feeling optimistic about the progress we’ve made so far. Up to this point, we’ve been exchanging Articles that do not include economics with the Employer (however, we do anticipate an economic response will be coming from them within our next few dates!) and we’ve already come to agreements on a few new Articles:

• A “Reemployment” Article, which helps with keeping our coworkers at Capital Medical Center.

• An article which clarifies that changing time (Donning & Doffing hospital-provided surgical attire) is paid & counted as time-worked.

• Parking language, identical to the same language won by our Union/MultiCare coworkers in Peirce & King County earlier this year! (No-cost-parking maintenance)

While we haven't received a formal response from MultiCare regarding our wage and premium proposal yet, it’s important to note that this topic was still discussed. We engaged in productive conversation with management about the regional healthcare market; outlining our goals and priorities for the wage scale this year. We also highlighted key differences between our pay at Capital as compared to the broader MultiCare Health System.

Finally, we emphasized to MultiCare our mutual priority of finalizing this contract without unnecessary delays. With our language, benefits, and wage proposals now on the table, we hope to see a response from MultiCare that reflects this on their end. We’re looking forward to our next bargaining session on October 2 and are eager to maintain this momentum!

“We don’t want to be bargaining this contract next year! we hope that getting so many of our proposals into the Employer’s hands in the first few sessions motivates them- let’s hope they come back with a counter that gets us there quickly!” -Beatrix Sales, CS Tech