Skagit Regional Health Step by step towards a better future for all!
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Our Union Bargaining Team: Marilyn Faber, Union Rep; Cindy Tjaden; Isabel Contreras; Kalisa Dolph; Britney Myers-Fuller; Ashley Price; Briana Hovsepian; Graydon Hingey; Michael Koenig; Annalise Pasillas; Elizabeth Major; Alina Delano; Micheal Schwartz, Daniel Booker (Hospice of the Northwest)
On March 26, our Union Bargaining Team met with the Hospital to discuss pending proposals, both non-economic and economic. The Hospital delivered their non-economic counterproposals in the morning, and our team responded right after lunchtime. Our non-economic counters were presented as a package.
The following topics were covered and discussed:
Donning and Doffing – we have stressed to the Hospital the importance of having flexibility to address last-minute challenges around this topic. Our team has informed the Hospital of our tentative acceptance of their last proposal on this.
Changes to Posted Schedule – during this negotiation, our team has communicated to the Hospital the need for a more detailed system and a mechanism to prevent the burden of last-minute changes to posted schedules.
Standby – we reached a tentative agreement on a new section in the CBA to reinforce the Hospital’s obligation to follow the law and obtain staffing before requiring mandatory overtime.
Call schedules – our bargaining team is seeking a commitment from the Hospital to make a good faith effort to prevent call assignments from exceeding the monthly equitable average based on the SRH staffing model for FTEs.
New recognized classifications – Insurance Authorization Lead, Patient Financial Liaison, and Maintenance Clinic Engineer have been added to the recognized classification list.
With those topics, we are close to finishing the non-economic topics of bargaining. We are now waiting to see how the Hospital responds to our non-economic package.
After over a month of waiting for the Hospital to get back to our team on economics, we received their response in the afternoon as “supposal”. A ‘supposal’ is a way for teams to collaborate and explore ranges, combinations, and redlines before putting together a binding proposal.
We saw some positive movement in areas where the Hospital has not moved before, but we are NOT close to the goals set by our Bargaining Team. Our Bargaining Team has been preparing for our next bargaining sessions Thursday, April 2 and Monday, April 6.
If you have questions or would like to get more involved in organizing a fair contract, please reach out to Union Rep, Marilyn Faber, at 1-866-210-3000, EXT. 4678.
