My years teaching and my years in labor are not separate chapters; they’re the same story told in different languages. In both spaces, the goal is to help people find their voice, claim their agency, and recognize their power as interdependent, not individual. Both require listening. Both require courage. Both require faith in the transformative potential of ordinary people.
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Union health care workers fought hard for a new staffing law in Washington, and we celebrated together when it passed. Now we’re preparing for the first stages of successful implementation. To get the most out of this statute and hold hospital management accountable for safer staffing, it’s going to require knowledgeable and empowered nurses and other health care workers in every department, on every shift, at every hospital. Here’s how we’re going to get there, together:
The state Hospital Staffing Advisory Committee has been established and will meet monthly. Among its first tasks is development of a uniform hospital staffing plan form. This committee comprises health care workers and hospital representatives.
Staffing committees must be established under the new law. These will include RNs, LPNs, CNAs,and other direct patient care staff. 50% of the voting members must be nursing staff.
New staffing committee charters—covering processes for meetings, attendance, electing co-chairs, reviewing complaints, etc.—must be filed with Dept of Health (DOH). Proposed staffing plans are due to hospital management.
Every hospital must submit a final staffing plan to DOH.
Hospitals must implement the new approved staffing plans by this date, and begin reporting noncompliance to DOH whenever they fail to meet at least 80% compliance that month.
Joint SEIU 1199NW / UFCW 3000 / WSNA Trainings in 2023-24:
All trainings will be online, relevant to where we are in the statewide rollout of the staffing law, and whenever possible will be recorded and shared for those who cannot attend live. Contact a representative or organizer from your union to learn more about signing up!
“The safe staffing bill has many tools we can use to help immensely with safe staffing. I am deeply passionate and excited to learn more and to get to work, and I invite all my fellow healthcare workers to join me.”
“My coworkers and I spent a lot of energy advocating for this law to pass, so we’re certainly going to learn how to enforce it to the fullest. The big hospitals have a lot of money and a lot of resources to figure out the staffing models they think are best, and we’ll need to match that with knowledge of the law and union power.”
“We know that our unity is our strength in every challenge we face, and the work it will take to successfully implement our safe staffing bill is no exception. Working together across all three of our healthcare unions is how we’re going to kickstart a culture of safety in our hospitals and hold our employers accountable to ensure compliance. As a member of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, I’m proud to continue working collaboratively with my WSNA and UFCW 3000 siblings to create a united front and tackle the next piece of our implementation plan: healthcare workers’ education.”
How can your union further your career? What is a union apprenticeship? What's our union doing to create more high-paying and safer jobs in our industries? Michaela talks to fellow UFCW 3000 member Indy about his experience with the union meat cutting apprenticeship program, and then talks to Evan and Andy about the apprenticeship and the new WeTrain workforce development organization.
UFCW 3000 union shop steward Michaela is always ready to answer fellow members’ questions about their union. She’s also a devoted murder podcast listener. Put those interests together, and she decided to start a union podcast to get all her coworkers’ questions and her own questions answered, and to meet as many people as possible who could share what it means to be a part of UFCW 3000. (No murder on this podcast, only solidarity!)
*The information shared on this podcast is offered by rank and file union member leaders of UFCW 3000. There may be inaccuracies or misstatements shared, as members will be speaking from the lenses of their perspectives and life experiences. While members are doing their best to share good information, we can make no claims to 100% accuracy and this podcast should not be construed as legal advice.
How do you become a shop steward, anyway? Why should you bother getting training on your union rights? Why does a union workplace feel different than non-union ones? Michaela meets with UFCW 3000’s Education Director Marc to discuss all the ways members can get more involved in their union, take on leadership roles in the workplace, and get training and education that makes our union stronger.
UFCW 3000 union shop steward Michaela is always ready to answer fellow members’ questions about their union. She’s also a devoted murder podcast listener. Put those interests together, and she decided to start a union podcast to get all her coworkers’ questions and her own questions answered, and to meet as many people as possible who could share what it means to be a part of UFCW 3000. (No murder on this podcast, only solidarity!)
*The information shared on this podcast is offered by rank and file union member leaders of UFCW 3000. There may be inaccuracies or misstatements shared, as members will be speaking from the lenses of their perspectives and life experiences. While members are doing their best to share good information, we can make no claims to 100% accuracy and this podcast should not be construed as legal advice.
PCC workers have been standing up to bring PCC back to its roots as PCC has continued to expand and change over the past years - whether this was fighting to nominate and then elect two PCC workers onto the PCC Board of Trustees or fighting to win new Worker Caucus Committee language in our contract that will allow for more worker input on store and Co-op operations.
Our union contract also has language that allows for workers to have input into the Board of Trustees’ search for a new CEO.
With the resignation of PCC CEO Suzy Munford on August 7, PCC has an opportunity to bring a CEO in that holds Co-op values dear. We have reached out to PCC leadership for information about their timelines for interviews and how they plan to incorporate worker input.
All seminars are conducted on-line over Zoom. Once registered you will receive a confirmation email and a Zoom meeting invitation.
Register in advance for this meeting: After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Register in advance for this meeting: After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Register in advance for this meeting: After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Members are coming together in Bellingham to make our union stronger by training to become worksite Stewards...
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.
