Correcting the Record: Decades after Organizing Her Own Unit, Leslie Ball Is Still Fighting for Her Coworkers
Leslie Ball, a certified surgical technologist at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and a longtime UFCW 3000 Union Steward, has spent decades standing up for herself and her coworkers.
Her fight for better working conditions began in the late 1990s, when she received a 30-cent wage increase, which ended up only being a five-cent raise after her employer reduced her shift differential by a quarter. With years of experience and a deep understanding of the value surgical techs bring to the table, she knew a nickel wasn’t going to cut it. So she and a coworker, Gail Miller, started organizing their colleagues at St. Joe's despite warnings that previous organizing efforts had failed.
Within a year, they helped Radiology, Respiratory Therapy, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, and other departments form the hospital’s first Technical Unit, which ratified its first contract in 1999.
Please lookout for a vote notice once we can confirm when the ratification vote will take place. Members will all have a chance to review the vote documents and ask questions, we will also hold a meeting to discuss this historic TA very soon. Also, please thank your Bargaining Team! They worked very hard.
We’re getting ready to head to the bargaining table, and we want to hear from you!
Join our Union Bargaining Team for a Bargaining Kick-Off Meeting to talk about the upcoming negotiations, review bargaining priorities, discuss the bargaining process, and answer questions.
This is your opportunity to get involved, share what matters most to you, and help shape our priorities as we prepare for bargaining.
Meeting ID: 821 3753 7914 Passcode: 251390
Get Involved!
Strong contracts are built when members stay informed and involved. Join us as we kick off bargaining and make sure Jefferson County members’ voices are heard at the table.
We look forward to seeing you and hearing from you!
Our Union Bargaining Team has reached a Tentative Agreement with Olympic Medical Center and is recommending a YES vote!
After ten sessions across six months of negotiations, our union Bargaining Team reached the difficult but necessary decision to call for a strike authorization vote.
We’ve come to management with contract language addressing our positions being overstaffed by agency & traveler employees. Management have come to us rejecting this proposal.
Our Bargaining Team is thrilled to announce that on September 22, 2026, an overwhelming majority of our members voted YES and approved the contract! We now have a ratified contract!
Our Union Bargaining Team has been working for several months on an agreement to transition Audiology Assistants and Pathologist Assistants into the existing UFCW 3000 Kaiser Permanente Pro Tech Optical Contract and we have reached a tentative agreement. The Bargaining Team fully recommends this agreement.
SEATTLE – Today the Seattle City Council passed Mayor Katie Wilson’s Fair Pricing and Transparency ordinance with no corporate amendments that open the door to algorithmic pricing or weaken enforcement, making Seattle home to the strongest ban on surveillance pricing in the country.
The employer joined us for two bargaining sessions on September 17 and 18. They have hired a new legal counsel who seemingly is trying to set a different, more collaborative tone with our union. We reached Tentative Agreements on several topics, including an Artificial Intelligence Memorandum of Understanding and an Inclusion Memorandum of Understanding to help protect some of our members who are part of marginalized communities.
Join your Bargaining Team and coworkers for an update on the current bargaining campaigns on Tuesday, Sept 22, 5:30-6:30pm. We will give updates on the St. Michael and St. Joseph bargaining and how we can build power together. Please show your support for your bargaining teams by wearing your union swag with pride every day, but especially today, September 18, for our next bargaining session.
Any questions can be addressed to Charlie King at 360-409-0606 or a Bargaining Team Member.
On September 15, a strong group of UFCW 3000 members marched into EvergreenHealth’s Board meeting to make sure their voices were heard.
On Wednesday, September 16, UFCW 3000 members in the St. Michael Medical Center Pro-Tech and Clinical Support unit voted UNANIMOUSLY to reject CommonSpirit’s offer, and overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike.
We are excited to announce that the 2026 nominations for the PCC Labor Management Advisory Committee (LMAC) will open on September 21, 2026. This is a great opportunity to nominate yourself or a coworker to help shape important decisions that impact PCC workers and our stores.
MultiCare continues to propose a wage scale placement process that could result in significant wage cuts for some members. Our Union Bargaining Team remains committed to fighting any proposal that moves workers backward.
Wednesday , June 17 at 1pm at LinkedUnion 12601 W. Explorer Dr., Suite 200 Boise ID 83713
Read the Fully Recommended Settlement (FRS) Online >>
Gains Include:
Significant Wage Increases
Affordable Healthcare
Improvement in Vacation and Holidays
We are the Union. The members of UFCW 3000 are over 50,000 members working in grocery, retail, health care, meat packing, cannabis, & other industries across Washington state, north-east Oregon, and northern Idaho. UFCW 3000 is a chartered member of UFCW International with over 1.4 million workers in North America.
To build a powerful Union that fights for economic, political and social justice in our workplaces and in our communities.
Correcting the Record: Decades after Organizing Her Own Unit, Leslie Ball Is Still Fighting for Her Coworkers
Leslie Ball, a certified surgical technologist at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and a longtime UFCW 3000 Union Steward, has spent decades standing up for herself and her coworkers.
Her fight for better working conditions began in the late 1990s, when she received a 30-cent wage increase, which ended up only being a five-cent raise after her employer reduced her shift differential by a quarter. With years of experience and a deep understanding of the value surgical techs bring to the table, she knew a nickel wasn’t going to cut it. So she and a coworker, Gail Miller, started organizing their colleagues at St. Joe's despite warnings that previous organizing efforts had failed.
Within a year, they helped Radiology, Respiratory Therapy, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, and other departments form the hospital’s first Technical Unit, which ratified its first contract in 1999.
Jenny C., a transporter at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, knows what it looks like when management hopes a problem will just go away.
Jenny has watched the facility's transport elevators malfunction for more than a year, filing report after report after each incident she witnessed. Supervisors did not appear to take these complaints seriously.
