Yesterday we met with the Employer for the second time. It was their turn to get back to us on our proposals. After their presentation our team worked the rest of the afternoon to respond to their proposals. See the tentative agreements (TAs) we've reached so far (please keep in mind that nothing is final until all members vote and approved the Contract).
Read MoreWe started our sixth day of union contract negotiations with proposals in our court, which we began with a new cadence that we thought a might help our discussions get across and reach the Employer. While we did reach a few new Tentative Agreements (a three-year duration on our contract, clarity around suggesting new premium-eligible certifications through Labor Management Committee, and the removal of some old language referencing an effective date from three years in the past…), I’m sure you can imagine, these aren’t the topics of discussion which our Bargaining Team and coworkers at SJMC care the most about.
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On Wednesday, June 24, our bargaining team met with CommonSpirit management for our fifth session of contract negotiations.
The conference room was very warm—nearly 80 degrees by the time we arrived at 8:30am—but our team was fired up even before the Employer’s counterproposals came later that morning. Given the recent unanimous strike vote and contract ratification by the Pharmacists at our hospital over the last two weeks, we spent our morning debriefing their negotiations, knowing their experience would give us insights into what we could expect at our own bargaining table.
Around 11am we received management’s “comprehensive” counterproposal. Comprehensive because technically it includes both economic and non-economic articles, but in quotations because there wasn’t much offered in the first place. Today’s proposals had so little movement that you would probably miss it if the Employer hadn’t read it to us:
An increase of 0.25% from their last proposal toward wages in each year of our contract, totaling 2.25% across the board for all classifications.
Rejection of any increase to premiums or differentials (lead pay, certification premium, preceptor pay, standby/on-call, and so on).
Beyond the Employer’s underwhelming offer on compensation, their proposal maintained some takeaways:
A proposal to eliminate the 15% pay-in-lieu-of-benefits wage differential for workers who opt out of health and welfare benefits (Section 9.5).
A proposal to modify the full- and part-time FTE definition as it applies to cost-sharing for health insurance premiums. This would result in workers currently considered full-time eventually paying a larger portion of monthly premiums (Section 12.1).
After receiving the proposal and moving to a conference room with a slightly lower temperature, our team continued strategizing around next steps and how to build power to win a strong contract. Ultimately, we decided it was best to return our own counterproposals at the start of our next bargaining session, rather than that afternoon. We suspect that many of the discussions we have at the table are being forgotten in the time between sessions. We look forward to returning to the bargaining table on July 16 and getting our own counterproposals to management first thing in the morning.
To get more information about ongoing negotiations and to discuss strategies to build power to win a strong union contract, join our next Contract Action Team meeting.
Tuesday, July 14
5:30pm - 6:30pm
Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 860 5668 2841
Passcode: 442907
If you haven’t already, sign our STRIKE PLEDGE CARD to show management we are ready to stand together:
And sign up to be an ACTION NETWORK LEAD to keep your coworkers informed and ready throughout bargaining:
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Bargaining Team: Michelle Gilmore, Respiratory Therapist; Monica Dewitt, Pharmacy Tech; Vanessa Giles, Surgical Technologist; Chad Michels, Cardiovascular Technologist; Sissy Allison, Surgical Technologist
Following our union contract vote meetings on Monday, June 22, we are proud to announce that our new successor Collective Bargaining Agreement was overwhelmingly ratified.
Read MoreJust after midnight on June 17- following twelve hours of negotiations with CommonSpirit- we have reached a Tentative Agreement on a successor contract for the Pharmacists at St. Joe’s.
Read MoreOn Thursday, June 11, nearly our entire bargaining unit turned out to our union vote meetings to review the Employer’s most recent contract proposal and cast ballots on their offer.
Read MoreWe are disappointed to announce that after a ten-hour bargaining day at our tenth bargaining session, CommonSpirit leadership still failed to present an offer we could recommend our workers ratify.
As such, the following vote has been scheduled so we can share the Employer’s proposed offer — and to be clear, we unanimously recommend voting NO on the Employer’s offer, and voting YES to authorize a strike.
Read MoreOn Wednesday, April 1, our Union Bargaining Team representing the Pharmacists at St. Joseph Medical Center met with Management for our ninth session of contract negotiations. Following several weeks since our most recent bargaining date before today- we started off the morning eager to hear Management’s response to the end-of-day package we’d presented last session.
Read MoreWe 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.
