UFCW 3000 Executive Board Unanimously Endorses Movement to Vote “Uncommitted” in Upcoming Democratic Primary in Washington State

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As the largest labor union in Washington State with over 50,000 members, and the largest UFCW local union in the nation, the UFCW 3000’s member-led Executive Board decided on Wednesday February 28th to endorse the effort to have people in the Democratic primary in Washington State vote “uncommitted” on the upcoming ballot.

While Biden has been an ally to workers over the last four years, low-wage workers cannot afford setbacks when it comes to the right to organize and the protections we’ve won during Biden’s time in office. To protect workers, we must give ourselves the best chance to defeat anti-worker forces in the General Election. The entire purpose of a primary election, unlike the general election, is for voters to cast their ballot to reflect their current wish for the party’s nomination.

Currently, many voters, and UFCW 3000 executive board, feel that the best path to have the best nominee, and to defeat Trump, is to vote “uncommitted” on the upcoming March 12 Washington primary. The hope is that this will strengthen the Democratic party’s ultimate nominee to defeat Trump in the General Election in November.

Once the Democratic National Convention takes place, our union is committed to sending staff, members, and resources to any swing state across the nation to support the Democratic nominee to win and defeat Trump.

We need a nominee who can run and beat Trump to protect workers across this country and around the world.

We stand in solidarity with our partners in Michigan who sent a clear message in their primary that Biden must do more to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Biden must push for a lasting ceasefire and ending US funding toward this reckless war.

We have many members who are deeply impacted by the war. The best way to send this message for policy change is through a vote of “uncommitted” on the upcoming March 12 Washington primary.

Our advocacy paid off: Safer staffing is coming to Washington hospitals!

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Our bill to address safe staffing in hospitals, ESSB 5236, was passed by the House earlier this month — the last step in a lengthy legislative process that we, in coalition with SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, UFCW 3000, and the Washington State Nurses Association, helped move forward with our actions, stories, and willingness to use our collective voice to ensure safer care in our hospitals. When we fight, we win!

The bill landed on Gov. Inslee’s desk to be signed into law on April 20, 2023. As of today, our bill is law.

What’s next?

We’ll celebrate our success at coalition victory parties around the state on May 11 from 6-8 p.m. RSVP to a Victory Celebration Here >>

  • Seattle: Seattle Labor Temple, 5030 1st Ave. S

  • Spokane: UFCW 3000 Office, 2805 N. Market St.

  • Tri-Cities: SEIU 1199NW Office, 7525 W. Deschutes Pl Ste 2 Kennewick, WA 99336

  • Tacoma: Shiloh Baptist Church, 1211 S I St.

  • Mt. Vernon: UFCW 3000 Office, 1510 N 18th St.

  • Everett: Snohomish County Labor Temple, 2810 Lombard Ave.

  • Olympia: Washington State Labor Council, 906 Columbia St. SW (2nd floor)

We’ll distribute an implementation timeline, provide resources, and share information to help us enforce the new staffing law and ensure accountability.

“I’m very glad to see the nursing staff representatives on our staffing committees expanded to include CNAs and LPNs alongside RNs. I know ensuring strict enforcement of a new staffing law is going to take some work, but I’m excited to get started learning how we can use it to keep our patients safer, our hospitals accountable, and our jobs more sustainable.”
— Patricia Brown, LPN, Tacoma General, member of UFCW 3000

The new safe staffing law will:

  • Strengthen accountability to hospital staffing plans set by staffing committees.

  • Eliminate CEO veto power over those plans.

  • Expand staffing committees to include LPNs, CNAs, and other direct patient care staff in addition to RNs.

  • Reduce hospitals’ ability to pack staffing committees with people who impede plans.

  • Create uniform reporting forms, which will mean that patients and healthcare workers will easily understand how many staff should be present.

  • Require hospitals to report noncompliance to the Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I).

  • Allow DOH to issue corrective action plans that could require minimum staffing standards and fines.

  • Expand meal and rest break laws to include all frontline staff.

  • Close loopholes to make mandatory overtime laws fully enforceable.

  • Allow L&I to issue escalating penalties for missed breaks.

  • Funds the Washington State Institute for Public Policy to conduct a study of existing staffing plans.

Washington State House Passes Safe Staffing Bill — Next Up, the Governor’s Desk!

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Today the House passed the healthcare staffing bill (ESSB 5236), the final legislative hurdle in a long process, to begin addressing the ongoing hospital staffing crisis this legislative session. The bill now heads to the governor’s desk.

We would not have gotten this bill through the Legislature without the countless members like you who sent in selfies, signed in “pro” on bills, contacted your legislators, testified in hearings, and so much more. The voices of healthcare workers at the bedside pushed the State Senate to go farther down the path toward safe staffing than ever before.

ESSB 5236 reflects a compromise between SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, UFCW 3000, the Washington State Nurses Association and the Washington State Hospital Association. The final compromise will strengthen accountability to staffing plans and allow for corrective action by state agencies if necessary up to and including enforcing safe staffing standards on hospitals. It represents a meaningful step toward safe staffing.

The final bill:

  • Strengthens accountability to hospital staffing plans. If hospitals fall below 80 percent compliance with their staffing plans, they are required to report noncompliance to the Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I). Noncompliant hospitals will be assigned a corrective action plan by L&I and DOH, which may include elements like safe staffing standards set by L&I that the hospital will have to follow.

  • Expands meal and rest break laws to include all frontline staff, closes loopholes to make mandatory overtime laws fully enforceable, and ensures hospitals follow the law. If there are more than 20 percent of breaks missed in a month, L&I will issue escalating penalties.

  • Funds the WA State Institute for Public Policy to conduct a study of existing staffing plans to establish what’s actually happening in WA hospitals and compare them to elsewhere. This study would set a baseline understanding of the staffing crisis in WA by a credible, nonpartisan source, and provide a benchmark against California and professional association standards for staffing levels, which is critical for continued work to ensure safe staffing in Washington.

After the Governor signs the bill, we will turn to implementation and enforcement. We will be reaching out about plans to educate members – particularly members of staffing committees – on the elements of the bill.

Safe Staffing Bill SB 5236 Passes Senate Ways & Means Committee

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A spread of three photos: One of two people in scrubs holding signs in support of safe staffing at the state capitol, the next a group of health care workers holding signs supporting safe staffing, and one of attendees at an outdoor candlelight

We’re writing with an update on the progress of Senate Bill 5236 – our bill to create safe staffing standards in Washington.

Last Friday, the Senate Ways and Means Committee voted to pass an amended version of SB 5236. It is worth celebrating that this bill is continuing to move forward through the legislative process, even as we know the fight for a strong version with meaningful enforcement provisions is ongoing. At this point, a few senators have prevented us from implementing statewide safe staffing standards across the board as initially proposed. Despite this, the committee did amend SB 5236 to strengthen staffing committees and improve enforcement, setting a solid foundation for us to keep fighting for safe staffing standards. We’re confident this agreement gets us closer to enforceable staffing standards by establishing penalties for hospitals that continue to violate staffing plans, and under the amended bill, if hospitals continue those violations, they would be subject to Labor and Industries’ strict enforcement of safe staffing standards.

The most important thing for all healthcare workers to know is that negotiations at the Capitol around this bill – what staffing standards and enforcement will look like – are ongoing as we speak, and state senators need to hear loud and clear from their constituents that this bill should stay as strong as possible. 

There is still time for hospital lobbyists to try to weaken the bill, but that means there is also time for us to make our voices heard. Contacting your senator, and encouraging your coworkers, family, friends, and community to do so as well, is the main way we can keep up the pressure. Share your experiences with short-staffing and what it means for your patients. Let them know what the current lack of accountability around staffing plans looks like day to day. Make it clear that their constituents are paying attention and demanding action.

Our next hurdle will be to get SB 5236 passed off the Senate floor by March 8th. We thank Sen. June Robinson for being our legislative champion on behalf of Washington’s healthcare workers and Sen. Christine Rolfes, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, for keeping the focus on this bill until it was voted out of committee.

Your work and advocacy up to this point have been invaluable. We encourage you to continue reaching out to your Legislators to urge them to pass SB 5236.

Senate Bill 5259: Protecting Workers from Impacts of Retail Theft

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On January 26, 2023, the Senate Labor Committee heard Senate Bill 5259, a bill we’ve worked on to address the impacts of retail theft on our members and our workplaces. UFCW 3000 members have been raising the safety and financial issues around retail theft for years now, and members in grocery and retail said that tackling retail theft and ensuring workplace safety were top legislative priorities for 2023. SB 5259 would prohibit discipline of a grocery worker who engages during a situation of retail theft, and UFCW 3000 members and staff testified in support during the committee hearing.

Watch UFCW 3000 members’ testimony below!

“I wasn’t given any kind of training on what the manager wanted me to do to ‘intervene’ here, but I felt like I needed to follow his instructions or I would lose my job. In fact, in this case, following his instructions got me fired because when I did in fact intervene here, I lost my job for violating company policy by intervening with this woman. Instead of being required to take preventative measures to deter this kind of theft, Fred Meyer punished me for doing what should be their job. I hope we can get the committee support for SB 5259 so this doesn’t happen to another worker in this industry again.” -Suzanne Geffre, Fred Meyer, Richland

“While protecting workers, this legislation will not mitigate all the harms to me and my coworkers from retail theft. We think it will go a long way in ensuring our members feel empowered to make their jobs safer. From 2018 to 2020, the number of assaults reported to the FBI rose 42% overall, but by 63% in grocery stores. And in 2021, more than half of mass shooter incidents were in places of commerce. We need your help! Violent attacks are going to continue regardless of what you do this year to protect our jobs. We know what type of deterrence works, and that is to deliver the best possible customer service to every customer. This legislation will ensure we can do that without fearing we will lose our job and we need you to pass it in 2023.” -Naomi Oligario, Safeway, Port Orchard

“Our daily loss is listed by the time clock in our stores. Between when I started to now, that daily loss number has gone from in the hundreds to now thousands. Daily. It doesn’t seem fair to me that the theft the grocery companies do nothing to deter affects my department profit numbers, for which I’m then held accountable. At my Safeway we are told that we have to have our counters full and ready for customers by a set time every day, but it’s hard to do that when a customer walks in and fills up a cart with meat and walks out without paying. I know that as a manager in my Seafood department, if I could simply walk up to a customer who was doing this, to ask them if they need help, it would be a deterrence. Our stores need to have effective deterrence because workers in our stores like me are held to account for the store’s failure to deter theft.” -Anna McAllister, Safeway, Kent

Sarah Cherin, Executive Vice President of UFCW 3000, speaks to the committee about members’ experiences with retail theft.

Debbie Gath, with Teamsters Local 38, talks about her work as a Union Rep helping members facing discipline or termination.

YOU CAN TAKE ACTION TO SUPPORT THIS BILL:

We’re Telling Our Legislators: Safe Staffing Standards Can’t Wait

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After supporting our communities through three years of a pandemic, staffing in our hospitals is worse than ever. We know we don’t have a shortage of healthcare workers; we have a shortage of healthcare workers who are willing to work in these conditions. That’s why we’re calling on the legislature to pass a comprehensive law that puts patient safety and healthcare workers first.

Senate Bill 5236 calling for safe staffing standards was introduced in the Washington State legislature and had its first public hearing Jan. 17. The bill includes:

  • Safe staffing standards including maximum patient assignments

  • Adequate enforcement of staffing laws

  • Expanded protections for overtime and breaks

  • Protecting our rights to staffing committees and expanding them to be inclusive of the entire care team

 

Healthcare workers’ voices are critical!

Email your legislator. As constituents and union members, we know that direct communication with our elected representatives is one of the most effective ways to advocate for change. Send a message using our online advocacy tool:

 

IN OLYMPIA:

The state Senate Committee on Labor and Commerce heard public testimony in support of SB 5236

“Less than one year ago I provided testimony on HB 1868 hoping this state would pass a law ensuring nurses and patients had safe healthcare environments – instead, staffing got worse. Not because this state isn’t educating enough nurses. The shortage is not nurses, the shortage is safe work environments. No amount of money can keep nurses repeatedly experiencing moral injury and burnout.” - Kelli Johnson, RN, Providence Regional Medical Center, Everett

 

“I have served on the staffing committee at our hospital for many years and have chaired that committee for the last year and a half. I am here to tell you it is infuriating to sit in committee month after month, year after year and see how our staffing guidelines are breached every single day on many units a day leaving nurses in untenable, dangerous and heartbreaking situations.” - Nonie Kingma, RN, Sacred Heart Hospital, Spokane

 

“Implementing safe staffing standards in every Washington hospital is the one thing that will make patient care safe again and keep healthcare workers like me at the bedside. Patient care is devastated, and that’s devastating for those of us at the bedside. Where I work, folks’ fingers are on the send button to resign. They are ready to move to outpatient care, retire — frankly, anything else. This bill makes working in a hospital safe again. This bill is what will keep and bring healthcare workers back to the beside.” - Melissa Swetland Leaptrot, RN, St. Anne Hospital, Burien

A person speaking in front of a bookshelf

Senate Hearing on Safe Staffing Law a Huge Success!

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Watch UFCW 3000 member Kelli Johnson, Providence Everett ER nurse, speak to state senators about the importance of safe staffing standards.

This week UFCW 3000 members and our allies at SEIU Healthcare 1199NW and WSNA, along with community supporters, made our presence known at the State Capitol during a state senate hearing on Safe Staffing bill SB 5236. Health care workers testified during the committee hearing and met with lawmakers to ensure they know how desperate the staffing crisis is—and how important it is to pass statewide safe staffing standards now.

“Less than one year ago I provided testimony on House Bill 1868 hoping the state would pass a law ensuring nurses and patients have a safe healthcare environment. Instead, staffing got worse,” said UFCW 3000 member and Providence Everett emergency RN Kelli Johnson to the senate committee. “The shortage is not nurses, the shortage is safe work environments. No amount of money can keep nurses repeatedly experiencing moral injury and burnout, two of the top three reasons nurses leave the profession.”

We are not alone: Firefighters, mental health advocates, rare disease patient advocates, and others also testified in support. And more than 2,000 people signed in “Pro” in support of the bill, more than twice as many as those opposed!

Take action to support SB 5236:

UFCW 21 Opposes Seattle Charter Amendment 29

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UFCW 21’s executive board announces our opposition to Seattle Charter Amendment 29 with this public statement:

“Dealing with our region’s housing crisis is a top priority for UFCW 21 members, many of us frontline workers who have experienced housing insecurity and interact daily with customers and patients who are underserved by current housing and mental health systems. But sweeping unhoused people from one place to the next is a waste of city resources, degrading to our unhoused neighbors, and an ineffective solution to a systemic problem. Real solutions will put affordable housing first, refrain from criminalizing homelessness, and invest in racial and economic equity. Charter Amendment 29, calling itself 'Compassion Seattle,' does none of this and we condemn its attempt to write a policy of encampment sweeps into our city’s founding document for years to come. We urge Seattleites NOT to sign the petition for Charter Amendment 29.”

-Jeannette Randall, UFCW 21 Executive Board Member

UFCW 21 Endorses Council Member González for Seattle Mayor

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For Immediate Release: Monday 4/12/21 | Contact: Tom Geiger, UFCW 21, 206-604-3421

SEATTLE, WA —  Today, UFCW 21, the region’s largest labor union, announced its endorsement of Council Member Lorena González for Seattle Mayor. The working partnership with our worker-led union goes back nearly a decade —  a decade of both great progress and great strife for working people in our city. The Mayor of Seattle can be a major force for leading change and our belief is that González is the best candidate for our city and that she will help meet the potential to reduce inequity, reduce racial injustice, and improve the rights and daily lives of working people. UFCW 21 has been at the center of efforts for over a decade to forward workers’ rights and lead the nation.

González reacted to the news: “I’m proud to have the support of UFCW 21's 46,000 hard-working members. Their workers are vital to our city's economy and have been on the front lines during the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm proud to have worked with UFCW 21 on the city council to establish the Office of Labor Standards, protect workers from scheduling instability and to provide hazard pay for grocery store workers during the pandemic. As Seattle's next Mayor, I will continue to work with our essential workers to ensure the safety and health of working people and to create good-paying jobs."

Our city was one of the first to pass a dramatically higher minimum wage, paid sick days, secure scheduling, and most recently hazard pay for essential grocery store workers. González has been there with us all along the way, providing savvy, principled and progressive leadership.

"Council Member González was a great partner in the fight for the Secure Scheduling law to help us have more control over our schedules at work and to better plan time with family. As a grocery store worker and elected board member of UFCW 21, I'm very happy she has our full support to become Seattle's next mayor," said Maggie Breshears who works at Fred Meyer in Greenwood.

"Last year, after continued problems and the Seattle Police Officers Guild’s refusal to meet community demands for major police reform and accountability, UFCW 21 heard the community’s demands, and we took a leadership role in the Labor community and fought for and succeeded at having SPOG removed from the MLK Labor Council.  Everyone, people of all races and economic levels need police justice and should have equal access to that justice in our communities. Seattle has a lot of work to do along these lines and we feel Council Member González can help lead that work as Mayor," said Sam Dancy, a longtime QFC worker in West Seattle and elected Executive Board member of UFCW 21.

As an at-large member of the council, González has been elected by voters across the city. And as an attorney and advocate, she has a long record of caring, action and success for the working people of the city and beyond. Her own story combines the hard struggle of an immigrant family, a farmworker family. She understands firsthand the trials of racism, the inequality in our economy, as well as the benefits of getting a strong public education and the importance of getting organized and involved in community.