We started off our seventh bargaining session with Optum on May 21 disappointed that while we expected to hold our eighth session tomorrow (Friday, May 22), Management let us know beforehand that they would need to cancel, keeping just our first of the two days to continue working on our first union contract.

Despite this, we were dedicated to make today’s bargaining date productive and aimed to wrap up most-if-not-all non-economic articles, and importantly, continue laying the groundwork to be ready to act fast when wages and other economics counterproposals are finally returned by Management.

Regarding non-economics, we were able to reach tentative agreements on what are currently Sections 3 and 13 (Union Representation, and Leaves of Absence, respectively), and we made a few exchanges of a newly proposed Memorandum of Understanding (or “MOU”; essentially an extra or additional section of the contract, which relates to but is generally situated outside of the full Collective Bargaining Agreement) outlining a year-for-year work-history audit for Optum Care Everett workers, details below:

BACKGROUND:
Winning a strong wage scale is really only half of the fight in a first union contract; second priority being how current employees are placed onto a step of those wage scales. Of course, the position of our union Bargaining Team is that the most logical way to do this is by paying people according to their overall years of working experience in related jobs (including experience prior to working at our oncology clinic!)

While the Employer have at least verbally signaled a shared interest in this approach (no formal counterproposal or Agreement yet), an experience audit by itself isn’t directly economic, being that it really just means gathering comprehensive work-history from each employee.

EXPERIENCE AUDIT MOU:
To this end, our Bargaining Team came up with a solution: start the experience audit process now so both teams have the necessary information to make sure workers are placed on the scales appropriately.

In short, we brought this concept to management and seemed to face a bit of push-back when it came to the timeframes involved. Where our union Bargaining Team feels this process should start as-soon-as-possible, the Employer conveyed hesitation about when they could get an intake form out to employees.

NEXT STEPS:
Because we feel like this is a highly essential component of our wage negotiations and strive to avoid any and all delays possible- our team decided to work with our union negotiator and representative at the bargaining table to make an experience audit form ourselves.

Our union Bargaining Team strongly encourages all Optum Everett Oncology Clinic employees to fill out the experience form here >>

Lastly; please note that while we are dedicated to winning strong wages and experience-based pay for all Optum Everett Clinic workers, the audit and experience calculations are preliminary steps, and wage rates and wage scale placement are both still subject to the collective bargaining process.

To learn more about ongoing negotiations, ask questions about the experience audit, and strategize to build power and win a strong first union contract, join our next Contract Action Team meeting on Thursday the 28:

CONTRACT ACTION TEAM MEETING: Thursday, May 28 from 6:30pm – 7:30pm on Zoom >>

Meeting ID: 883 4996 2944 Passcode: 571748

Our union Bargaining Team: Janis Laffin, RN; Molly Hugo, RN; Ashley Seidelman, Patient Care Coordinator