PRMCE RN - Positive Movement

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Bargaining Team: Kristen Crowder, Kimball Conlon, Carrie Rimel, Stephanie Sausman, Tulena Lammers, Terry Pierce, Scott Ryan, and Juan Stout.

“Our team had many small wins while working toward our end goals: staffing and retention for nurses and patients in our community. We had many productive conversations to share perspectives on high-priority issues. Let’s keep up the pressure and support the Bargaining Team.”

This week, our team bargained on two back-to-back dates, July 27–28. We had highly productive sessions and made significant progress on language wins while narrowing proposals.

We continued deep discussions on staffing language, low census, meal and rest breaks, competitive wages, and licensure and education benefits. We met with Providence to discuss barriers to accessing our education benefits and how the process can be improved so more nurses can access their benefits. We reached a tentative agreement on language that assures leave and reimbursement requests will not be unreasonably denied and that nurses will be reimbursed up to the contractual benefit regardless of budgetary constraints. We also discussed ways to educate nurses and leadership about the application and approval process.

There were lengthy discussions regarding missed meal and rest breaks and how to best assure that nurses are actually receiving breaks. Providence believes that all nurses are reporting their received breaks accurately and believes that the two units with the highest percentage of missed breaks are the Emergency Department and Labor and Delivery. We are working to find solutions, but we need all nurses to report missed breaks to support our Bargaining Team’s efforts at the table.

We return to the bargaining table on August 31 and September 1.

Contract Action Team Meetings

  • Tues, Aug 4, and Tues, Aug 18

  • 8pm

Our team will share highlights and tentative agreements reached in our updates. Join us for the Contract Action Team meetings to dig into the details.

Note: Our team is being transparent about proposals throughout the bargaining process, and the final recommended agreement may not include these items.

Priorities We Highlighted This Week

  • Competitive wages for recruitment and retention

  • Improvements to staffing and Staffing Committee language

  • Emergent Needs Coverage Pay

  • Break relief solutions

  • Improvements to the assignment of low census, including clarification and mitigation for excessive low census

  • Low Census Standby will be offered to nurses placed on low census

  • Improvements to Charge premium

  • Pension plan in addition to the current 401k retirement plan

New Tentative Agreements Reached

  • Definition of Christmas Eve nights and weekends for night-shift nurses

  • Adding floats to Skills Departments and Units, Exhibit B

  • Weekend premium moving from $4.00 to $4.20 on April 30, 2027

  • Study prep time allowed outside of scheduled work time

  • Immigration and ICE Enforcement MOU

  • Nurse education and licensure

All updates can be found on our website! >>

Take Action

  • Continue to wear your Yellow and Blue Union colors.

  • We have the right to wear our Union bandanas, swag, and colors—let’s get creative and have fun with it.

  • File with L&I for missed meal breaks: Healthcare Workers Complaint >>

Questions, or want to find out how you can get involved? Contact a member of the Bargaining Team or Union Rep Anthony Cantu at 206-436-6566.