Most Recent News & Updates
With ULPs on the horizon and a strike authorization in hand, we bargained late into the night two days this week. While some progress was made, the hospital is still short of meeting our priorities and continues to push their takeaways. We will not let that happen! Stay prepared and join us for all the upcoming Strike preparation meetings via ZOOM to learn more about the next steps in your fight for a best contract.
Our collective actions over the last two weeks have paid off in this bargaining session, and we are encouraged by the results! Management arrived prepared to engage and met with our team early in the day, replying to several outstanding proposals. Throughout the course of the day, we reached sixteen tentative agreements. One of these was a major breakthrough in our economic proposals – agreeing to the definitions of full time and part time employees. Thank you to our Contract Action Team members who pulled a lot of information to support the need for these definitions.
The union met with LabCorp on Wednesday, October 28, and once again received unacceptable, disrespectful proposals. LabCorp offers minimal, below-market wage increases, resists giving reasonable notice of outsourcing, and wants to strip away our rights and gain total power to change your health insurance whenever it chooses. The company blames upcoming Medicare reimbursement cuts for refusing to move closer to our proposals, but we are skeptical: LabCorp is thriving financially, its stock price is rising, and CEO Adam Schechter received $18,399,913 in compensation last year.
Grocery executives are working to grab every penny from their workers and members of our communities. Every contract negotiation is an opportunity to fight for what we deserve and work to steer the grocery industry back on track, to focus on what matters: delivering quality customer service and great products to feed our neighbors.
In our last contract negotiations, our union won the largest wage increases that we’ve seen, secured a transition to the stable our union health plan through the UFCW Spokane healthcare Trust, and ensured funding to keep our pension plan dependable for retirement. Our NE Oregon contracts recently expired, and our union is prioritizing a new contract that builds upon our previous wins.
After four long days of bargaining with the Employer and countless hours of preparation, our Bargaining Team reached a Tentative Agreement (TA) that we are excited to bring back to our members!
While our initial bargaining sessions were largely positive and relatively low stakes, we now have reached the meat and potato economic proposals that our unit cares about most. This is often the most challenging stage of bargaining – especially when bargaining a first contract. An example from today: in response to our extensively researched wage proposal, the company stated "we don't want to change how we do things" without further discussion.
As 2,500 UFCW 3000 members at MultiCare continue preparations for contract bargaining to begin early next year, there are several upcoming opportunities to gather, discuss and contribute. First off, a big thanks to all who completed the bargaining surveys during August and September. That information will be crucial in our assessing priorities before bargaining.
After holding nomination votes for the Labor Management Advisory Committee (LMAC) from September 21–25, 2026, and then holding nominee votes for Ballard, Central District, and Issaquah on October 21, 2026, we are happy to announce your committee members!
This agreement comes after more than six months of bargaining, an informational picket, federal mediation, a strike pledge campaign, and a strike authorization vote that showed CommonSpirit members were ready to fight for a better contract
After more than a month since our last session, our Union Bargaining Team; Alyssa and Oliver were able to reconvene with the employer on October 19 to receive their economic counter proposal.
Join us via Zoom on Tuesday, October 20, at 6:30 PM to learn more about the tentative agreement reached between our Union Bargaining Team and CommonSpirit.
On Wednesday, Sept 30, the UFCW 3000’s member-led Executive Board voted unanimously to reject Initiatives 638 and 001 and to endorse the No Hate campaign.
“At a time when workers are struggling to keep up with sky-high prices for groceries, housing, health care, and other basic necessities, we cannot afford to give a tax cut to the wealthiest people in our state,” said Sam Dancy, UFCW 3000 Executive Board Vice President and Grocery Bargaining Team Member
Our member-led Bargaining Team met with representative from Puzzle Break to lay the foundation for the negotiations of our first union contract. We discussed guidelines around how proposals will be passed, Bargaining Team availability and our desire to have consistent and timely bargaining dates moving forward.
After months of difficult negotiations and a powerful show of solidarity, we have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract! Thanks to our collective strength, we secured significant improvements, including:
Please join us in person at the UFCW 3000 Des Moines office for Contract Action Team meetings on the following dates. We will be meeting in person at the union office, but for those who cannot join in person there will be an online option. During these meetings, will be sharing updates as well as creating picket signs for an upcoming info picket.
After months of difficult negotiations, a powerful informational picket, and an overwhelming strike authorization vote, our Union Bargaining Team fought late into the night on October 8 and reached a tentative agreement on a new contract!
The Nominations are in, now it’s time to vote for who will represent you and your coworkers from Ballard, Central District, and Issaquah PCCs on the newly formed PCC Labor Management Advisory Committee (LMAC). Secure online voting will take place Wednesday, October 21 from 8am to 8pm. Every PCC store elects one LMAC representative, you may only vote on a nominee from your own store.
Following a series of highly attended vote meetings on Monday, October 5, union technical workers at St. Joseph Medical Center voted nearly unanimously to:
Reject CommonSpirit’s subpar contract offer
Authorize a STRIKE
“We set the stage and gave our comprehensive proposal letting the employer know that our priorities are to win wages that we deserve, improve our transportation benefits, win immigration protection language as well as ensuring the safety of our co-workers. We are eager to see what BDA’s response is on the 21. ” -Kota Owens, Bargaining Team Member
Hospital Workers Join Community to Oppose Closure of Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton
/ Gaelan Kelly
For Immediate Release: August 23, 2017
Hospital Workers Join Community to Oppose Closure of Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton
The union that represents workers at Harrison Medical Center (HMC) in Kitsap County has declared its opposition to CHI Franciscan Health’s (CHI Franciscan) plan to close HMC’s Bremerton campus. UFCW 21 announced today that, while it supports having a new, unionized hospital in Silverdale, Phase 2 of CHI Franciscan’s plan should be to upgrade or replace the hospital that currently serves the largest city in Kitsap – rather than close it down, as CHI Franciscan intends.
UFCW 21 member Aimee Oien said, “As a Pharmacy Tech at Harrison and a Kitsap resident, I expect CHI Franciscan to put the community’s needs ahead of their corporate parent’s bottom line. Kitsap County gives CHI a huge property tax exemption. It just does not make sense for them to close the hospital in our largest city.”
It is the position of UFCW 21 that instead of cutting staff, closing a hospital and outsourcing work, CHI Franciscan should improve staffing levels, keep more union workers on the job serving patients, and maintain hospital beds in the largest city in the County. That path would be better for health care workers, patients and the community.
Aimee Oien is one of about 1,300 members of UFCW 21 who work at HMC in Bremerton and Silverdale. These workers are members of UFCW 21 which represents more than 3,300 healthcare and grocery store workers who live in Kitsap County, and more than 46,000 around the state of Washington. UFCW 21 is the state’s largest private sector local union.
BACKGROUND:
CHI Franciscan’s parent company, Catholic Health Initiatives, acquired HMC in 2013 and recently asked the Washington State Department of Health (DoH) for permission to permanently close the hospital’s Bremerton campus and relocate all HMC hospital beds to its Silverdale campus. CHI’s plan calls for opening one new hospital tower in Silverdale in 2020 and a second in 2023, at which time the Bremerton campus would be closed.
DoH had originally approved CHI Franciscan’s request, but then in an unusual move agreed to reconsider its decision after reviewing information provided by the City of Bremerton, which opposes the hospital closure.
UFCW 21 Encourages Everyone to Attend Hearing:
The DoH will hold a second public hearing on CHI Franciscan’s plan.
· Friday, September 8
· Bremerton School District Office (134 Marion Ave N. Bremerton).
· UFCW 21 members and allies will rally at 9:30 AM, prior to the start of the 10:30 hearing.
The Critical Condition of Health Care in Kitsap
/ Gaelan KellyPatients and Community Coming Together to Reclaim Our Hospital. #KeepKitsapHealthy
