Following months of negotiations between Providence and your union bargaining team, a tentative agreement has been reached regarding the updates to required credentialing/licensure for Social Workers within the Care Management department.
Read MoreWe have been working for several months on a new collective bargaining agreement. The current discussion is about wages and other economic contract provisions.
Read MoreFollowing yesterday’s highly attended vote meetings, members of our union Bargaining Team tallied up the ballots received- the results of which were nearly unanimous- and are proud to announce that our first Collective Bargaining Agreement is officially ratified!
Read MoreOur Bargaining Team has reached a tentative agreement on a new contract and recommends a yes vote!
Read MoreOn November 12, our Bargaining Team had a fourth bargaining session with Management. We have made improvements on differentials and premiums, tuition reimbursement, required call out times, diversity and inclusion, workplace violence, and language addressing AI.
Read MoreFollowing a nearly seventeen hour bargaining session with Management- beginning Monday, November 10 and concluding after midnight on Tuesday the 11- our union Bargaining Team representing the Professionals at Providence St. Peter Hospital are proud to announce that we have reached a fully recommended tentative agreement on our first union contract!
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Bargaining Team: Kaye Balk, Registrar; Michael McDonald, ED Tech; Patty Martin, Financial Counselor; Nathan Burfeindt, Warehouse; Jessica Marvin, CNA II; Delia Acosta, Transport; Dawn Finley, Lab Assistant; Trevor Ford, Ambassador; Margaret Lauricella, Monitor Tech; Melissa Pringle, Sterile Processing
On October 28, our Bargaining Team met for the second time with management. We have made agreements on an additional holiday, increase in education, staffing, and updated language. Our team spent time working on economic proposals and we will be presenting these to the Employer at bargaining on November 4.
We want to hear your voices, so we hope you can attend the Contract Action Team Meeting tonight, October 29 at the UFCW 3000 office. If you are not able to attend tonight’s meeting, please attend the General Membership meetings on November 5 at the Spokane office!
Contract Action Team Meeting
October 29
5:30pm - 6:30pm
UFCW 3000 Office
2805 N Market St
Spokane, WA 99207
General Membership Meeting
November 5
8am, 1pm and 5pm
UFCW 3000 Spokane Office
2805 N Market St
Spokane, WA 99207
If you have questions or would like to get more involved in organizing a fair contract, please reach out to your Union Rep, Lenaya Wilhelm, at 360-409-0556.
“Informative.”
— Kaye Balk
“A long beginning, to continue to pray for success.”
— Patty Martin
“Bargaining was interesting, I think it went okay.”
— Delia Acosta
Over the course of our two sessions, we continued to make significant progress on our first Collective Bargaining Agreement; in fact, the majority of contract articles outlining general definitions of terms throughout the CBA, union administration, employer administration, work schedules, & many more, are wrapped up- totaling nearly seventy (70) individual Articles we have reached mutual agreement on.
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Providence Sacred Heart Service and Maintenance
Bargaining Begins
Our Union Bargaining Team: Kaye Balk, Registrar; Michael McDonald, ED Tech; Patty Martin, Financial Counselor; Nathan Burfeindt, Distribution; Lenaya Wilhelm, Union Rep; Margaret Lauricella, Monitor Tech; Melissa Pringle, Sterile Processing; Cesar Quiles Borrero, Union Bargainer; Trevor Ford, Ambassador; Dawn Finley, Lab Assistant; Jessica Marvin, CNA; Delia Acosta, Transport
On October 21 the Bargaining Team met for the first time with management. During the first bargaining meeting, we presented a number of non-economic proposals at the bargaining table. Those included staffing, rest and meal breaks, training, and a number of other items. Our subsequent bargaining dates will be on October 28, November 4, and November 12 when we expect to see economic proposals from both sides.
Now is the time to get involved and be a part of the process by joining us at the Contract Action Team Meeting.
Contract Action Team Meeting
October 29
5:30pm - 6:30pm
UFCW 3000 Office
2805 N Market St
Spokane, WA 99207
“First bargaining session down—respectful dialogue, strong start, ready to work towards what we deserve.”
— Jessica Marvin
“It’s been a great experience to start working through bargaining with my fellow co-workers.”
— Margaret Lauricella
“Today was hopeful, I am optimistic for the future here.”
— Trevor Ford
“Improvement is a long arduous journey. We are on our way.”
— Nathan Burfeindt
If you have questions or would like to get more involved in organizing a fair contract, please reach out to your Union Rep, Lenaya Wilhelm, at 360-409-0556.
On Wednesday, October 1, our union Professionals Bargaining Team met with Providence for our fourth (4) session of first contract negotiations. At the session prior to today (September 4) our team had officially gotten the last of our new proposals on the table- which means now our bargaining days would primarily consist of exchanging counterproposals back and forth with Providence- until we reach mutually agreed upon language (also known as tentative agreements)- & to date we have already reached more than thirty (30!) tentative agreements on individual contract articles.
Read MoreOn Thursday, September 18, following highly attended vote meetings at Providence St. Peter Hospital, we are proud to announce that we have overwhelmingly ratified our 2025 union contract!
Read MoreAfter more than six months of negotiations and uniting at our Hospital, our Bargaining Team has reached a tentative agreement and recommends a YES VOTE!
Read MoreOn Thursday, August 28, our bargaining team for the Professionals at Providence St. Peter Hospital met with management for our first official day of contract negotiations… and a productive first day, at that!
Read MoreOn August 25 and 26, our UFCW 3000 nurse bargaining team met with management to continue contract negotiations, bargaining late into the night for over 30 hours across both days.
Read MoreOn Tuesday, August 12, following highly attended vote meetings at Providence Centralia Hospital, our RN bargaining team is proud to announce that we have overwhelmingly ratified our new union contract!
Finalizing the Contract: Our union and Providence will now work to finalize and sign the new agreement. Once complete, printed copies will be distributed throughout the hospital.
Access in the Meantime: Redlined versions of the full agreement—including updated contract language and new wages—will be uploaded to our union's website so everyone can review and enforce our new contract right away.
Wage Increases: Our new wages will go into effect on the first full payroll period following ratification (August 12!)
LPN Experience Audit: Now that our CBA is officially in place, look out for a notification from Providence (this will come to your work email!) that the LPN experience form is published—this will be within 45 days from yesterday (at the latest, September 26). You will have 30 days once it's published to fill it out and submit to receive 2:1 credit on the new wage scale.
If you have any questions about our new union contract, please reach out to our Union Rep Collin Greer at 360-662-1982, or contact a member of our bargaining team!
Bargaining Team: Alicia Howard, ED RN; Jeannette Wrzesinski, PCU RN; Amanda Coleman, Outpatient Surgery RN; Angela Lamb, L&D RN
After a first negotiation with Providence at Home with Compassus, our bargaining team worked hard and has reached a tentative agreement. On August 18, we will have a ratification vote. Please join the bargaining team at the vote and have any questions you may have answered.
Read MoreThe session began with management presenting a comprehensive counter-offer covering all outstanding proposals, finally giving us a full view of where they stand. While their offer lacked meaningful movement, it did create space for productive dialogue throughout the day.
Read MoreWe are excited to announce we finally have 3 bargaining dates scheduled: 8/28, 9/3, and 9/4. We will report out via email after the bargaining dates to update everyone. Thank you all for your questions regarding the bargaining process. We are eager and ready to begin.
Read MoreOur union bargaining committee, representing the registered nurses at Providence Centralia Hospital is proud to announce that we have reached a tentative agreement on our new contract! Vote meetings have been scheduled, and all PCH RNs are encouraged to attend!
Read MoreOn Wednesday July 23, & Thursday, July 24, our bargaining team representing the registered nurses at Providence St. Peter Hospital met with management for our ninth and tenth sessions. We began the week with cautious optimism, as management indicated they would finally respond to our proposed Staffing Article, which we first presented on April 29. After months of silence on this critical issue, we were ready to engage in meaningful dialogue.
Unfortunately, the employer's response did not meet the urgency or seriousness of the staffing concerns we've raised throughout this bargain. Rather than offering meaningful improvements or new ideas, their proposal largely repackaged existing language already in our current contract, which outlines existing committees currently operating at our hospital.
Providence's response consisted of various revisions to the existing Nurse Practice and Staffing Committee Letter of Understanding (LOU)—a committee whose operation predates the 2022 Hospital Staffing Committee legislation. Management proposed separating some current contract language related to the Unit Based Council and Professional Governance workgroups into two distinct LOUs. These changes do little—if anything—to improve what we see as the structural causes of unsafe staffing, or give us any feedback on the staffing language our team put so much hard work and critical thinking into.
The lack of direct feedback on our Staffing Article, which would provide our team with the opportunity to appropriately consider and modify our proposal to aim for actionable solutions, prompted us to request this directly when we met with management later on July 24.
Staffing Ratios: Minimum RN-to-Patient ratios that must be maintained at all times, including during meal and rest breaks. The proposal includes flexibility to adjust the number of RN staff to exceed minimum staffing levels to account for acuity and intensity, consistent with the unit's staffing plan.
Enforcement: When ratios are not satisfied, nurses will be paid a premium of $5.00/hr for that specific shift and unit.
The Employer will send a quarterly report to the union of total premiums paid under the above.
Float Pool: The Employer will maintain a dedicated float pool equaling 5.0% of the total RN workforce at Providence St. Peter.
Emergency Department Contingency Staffing Plan: When there are greater than 20 boarded patients in the ED, and greater than 20 patients in the ED waiting room for longer than one hour, the contingency staffing plan goes into effect. The employer will make all reasonable efforts to assign five additional RNs to patient care. This plan remains in place until both numbers fall below 20 for no less than a continuous hour.
Break Relief Nurses: The Employer will post job openings for and make reasonable efforts to hire the equivalent of 13.0 FTE Break Relief nurses within 21 days of contract ratification. Break Relief nurses will assume patient care assignments for another RN so they may take an uninterrupted meal and/or rest break. Break Relief RNs will not have a patient care assignment of their own so they can appropriately cover the assignment. Furthermore, Break Relief RNs shall only be assigned to take patients that they have the appropriate qualifications and competencies to care for.
A "break buddy" model (or otherwise similar but differently titled system) will not be considered an appropriate substitute or replacement for staffing unencumbered break relief nurses.
Management's feedback on our Staffing Article suggested concerns that a few elements of our proposal—namely the minimum staffing ratios and Emergency Department Contingency Staffing Plan—might be too restrictive, implying that such standards could limit their flexibility to address staffing issues proactively, or to add nurses before the triggering conditions are met. Our team remains open to dialogue that ensures solutions are both safe and workable, and so we appreciate this dialogue. However, our stated goal is to set a standard for the minimums on safe staffing—and the capacity for management to act sooner if they see fit is written plainly in our Staffing Article's opening paragraph.
As a follow up to this discussion, we compiled a number of the studies, articles, and other resources we referenced while drafting our proposal and provided them to management in the hopes of substantiating the contents. These included Washington State Public Policy, which compares and contrasts different state hospital staffing plans; Nurse-to-patient staffing ratios from California State Law; staffing laws in effect in other nearby states; the American Nurses Association, who conclude that costs to individual hospitals can be higher when it is understaffed; and regional collective bargaining agreements which directly state minimum nurse-to-patient ratios.
We look forward to continuing the conversation with management on solutions to staffing.
"We have a duty to advocate for our patients; we feel like once again, the responses we got from management come with no immediate action, no new concepts, and overall, just fell flat."
— Julia Douglas
"Our team put a lot of work and thoughtfulness into our approach to the staffing language proposal, and what we presented to Providence takes into consideration things we can do outside of the Hospital Staffing Committee—to be proactive while scheduling nurses ahead of time, but also having a plan of action when staffing reaches critical levels; like the Emergency Department Contingency Staffing Plan. If their concern is that this mechanism might go into effect too late, we wish they would incorporate that into their counter, rather than just reject it entirely..."
— Ashley McBride
"The lack of an appropriate number of staff to care for patients on other units impacts the entire hospital—even units that aren't themselves suffering from a staffing issue, and because then RNs are being floated."
— Andy Dusablon
August 7
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Meeting ID: 858 1875 0093
Passcode: 3000
Washington State Labor Council Building - Olympia
3rd Floor Conference Room
906 Columbia St SW #330, Olympia, WA 98501
Front door code: 3413
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.
