MultiCare Capital Medical Center Professionals Looking Ahead

Our Union Bargaining Team: Callie Hills (Social Worker), Sela Smith (Pharmacist), Amy Myrtue Nelson (Dietitian), Kimberly Vetter (Occupational Therapist), Tammy Taylor (Physical Therapist)
 
“Day one down!” -Tammy

On Wednesday, August 27, our Bargaining Team met with the Management for our first official day of negotiations on our first union contract! We passed along most of our proposals to the Employer and are waiting for their response at the next session. Overall, we felt it was a very productive day!
 
We began our first bargaining day putting the finishing touches on what we would later present to the Employer as our initial contract proposal. We included non-economic language, economic language (vacations, premiums etc.) and pure economics (wages). Below are some examples of language we proposed and why it is important.
 
Union Representation; This section establishes union Stewards, who is one of us, elected by us, to help in grievance and investigatory matters like Weingarten meetings. A Weingarten meeting is an investigatory meeting conducted by management which could lead to discipline.

We also proposed just cause, which means that there needs to be progressive discipline, rather than the Employer having the ability to fire us at-will. They have to document every infraction and we have an opportunity to dispute it if that discipline is unfair or goes against what the contract says.

Labor Management Committee; This is a committee where Management has to hear our concerns about working conditions and the administration of the agreement.

Grievance Procedure; Grievance Procedures are important to help us enforce our contract, whether related to discipline, scheduling, pay etc.

Wages; We created and proposed a wage scale that has built in wage increases for each year of service and a percentage increase every year after ratification
 
After presenting our initial proposals to the Employer, we spent the remainder of the day discussing and finalizing proposals, which we presented before leaving for the day.