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.
“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
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!
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreWe 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.
Read MorePCC workers have spoken: A majority voted to ratify the Tentative Agreement for both the Grocery and Meat contracts that our member-led Bargaining Team negotiated with co-op Management.
Read MoreAfter eight months of bargaining, sticker-ups, button-ups, leaflets at our stores, dozens of Contract Action Team meetings, and a massively successful info picket — all to reclaim our co-op for the workers and members who built it — your Bargaining Team reached a Tentative Agreement and recommends a YES vote to accept the proposal from PCC
Read MoreOver the last several months, we’ve stickered up, buttoned up, leafleted our stores, attended dozens of Contract Action Team meetings, and educated our customers and coworkers at a massive info picket — all to reclaim our co-op for the workers and members who built it.
And now, after bargaining into the wee hours of the morning on June 11, our worker-elected, member-led Bargaining Team has reached a tentative agreement with PCC.
Our member-led Bargaining Team returned to the table on May 26 with a mediator, which PCC requested, and we still have NO DEAL!
“The Employer says they won’t offer backpay unless our demands are reasonable. There is nothing reasonable about asking your staff to lowball their own worth.” — Connor Burk, Central District PCC
Read More“After 16 sessions, our employer still refuses to offer backpay and support for our Helper Clerks both inside and outside of Seattle. We all deserve to be paid for our work, and all of us deserve a wage increase, regardless of position. Your Bargaining Team remains dedicated to winning fair and more equitable wages.” —Dan Polking, Fremont
Read MoreErrol is a pro-union candidate with decades of experience in grocery and retail, including working as the VP of Grocery for Whole Foods. He believes in the power of co-ops to run thriving businesses while respecting workers and treating unions in good faith.
Read MoreOur workplace actions have given us momentum and have captured the PCC’s attention, but their sluggishness at the table tells us we need to get louder. That’s why we scheduled an Informational Picket on Wednesday, April 15. Together, we’ll show PCC’s administrators how ready we are to fight for the contract we deserve.
Read MoreOn March 10, our rank-and-file Bargaining Team met with PCC to try to reach a deal. We were prepared to bargain all night, but we left disappointed when PCC failed to present us with a full, comprehensive proposal.
Read MoreWe want to strengthen worker democracy at our co-op, but PCC wants to eliminate the Worker Caucus Committee (WCC) and only extend our Labor Management Committee (LMC) by another contract cycle, which would weaken our voice.
Read MoreOn Feb 13, our member-led Bargaining Team returned to the table to fight for better wages, more hours, and other policies we need to uphold our co-op values.
We made some progress, reaching a Tentative Agreement with PCC that gives Helper Clerks top priority for promotions to Clerk positions.
Read MoreOn Jan 26 and 27, our member-led Bargaining Team returned to the table with PCC and made progress on many non-economic issues.
Read MoreOn Jan 20, our member-led Bargaining Team came to the table expecting meaningful progress. However, PCC only moved a few half-steps forward. They proposed:
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.
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.
