MultiCare Capital Medical Center Professionals Bargaining Update

On Wednesday, November 19, our Bargaining Team met with Management for our third formal session with MultiCare! We have primarily been exchanging non-economic articles back and forth while we await the Employer’s first economic proposal.  

Aligned Language (your union & the employer’s proposals match!):

New Hire Orientation: This allows Union Stewards and/or Union Representatives to meet with new hires for up to 30 minutes to discuss the benefits of union membership. The language outlines the process of meeting virtually or in person.
 
Seniority: Language that outlines hospital and job classification seniority, which are important for calculating benefit accruals, vacation requests, layoff order and so on.

Open Issues:

Floating: Dieticians at Capital Medical Center are asked to virtually cover other facilities and we believe this should be captured in the floating premium. The employer stated that because floating virtually is not captured in other collective bargaining agreements, they would not want to include it in our contract. However, since this is already happening, we feel that it should be captured within the language of the contract.
 
Severance: MultiCare proposed to cap severance at 6 weeks of pay for 10+ years of service and stated that this was an initiative they were trying to implement across the MultiCare system. As we have established severance packages of up to 12 weeks of pay for 25+ years of service throughout the system (including with our colleagues who were recently laid off) this proposal from the employer did not sit well with us. We countered with language that would maintain the severance packages that are currently offered.
 
We are looking forward to receiving MultiCare’s responses to wages & other economics and overall feel positive about the momentum we’ve built so far. Stay tuned for future updates as we continue working toward our first union contract with at our next bargaining date (which we are currently scheduling)
 
“We’ve made a lot of progress but still have a lot to go!” -Sela Smith-Pharmacist
 
Our Union Bargaining Team: Tammy Taylor-Physical Therapist, Sela Smith-Pharmacist, Kimberly Vetter-Occupational Therapist, Amy Myrtue Nelson-Dietician, Callie Hills-Social Worker.