On July 17, workers at Payless Foods in Freeland voted and overwhelmingly ratified our new Grocery and Meat Contracts! Our member led Bargaining Team negotiated a two year contract that gets us back to the table sooner to keep ahead of inflation.
Read MoreOur Union Bargaining Team met with the Employer again on July 16, to continue negotiations for our next Union contract. Given the Employer’s conduct during recent sessions, we did not expect significant progress. Unfortunately, we were proven right.
Read MoreOn Tuesday and Wednesday July 14th and 15th our Union bargaining committee and FEEST management met again to continue negotiating your first Collective Bargaining Agreement. We made progress on several issues and were able to come to agreements on the following: Immigration; Gender Identity; Performance Review; Whistleblower Policy; Secure Workplace; and No Strike No Lockout. We are awaiting FEEST’s full PTO counter proposals, and a wage counter proposal to move forward with the economics of our bargaining.
Read MoreOn July 15, we had our thirteenth session with the employer, and the second with the federal mediator. Despite a great deal of back and forth, we remain apart on the same outstanding issues, which was very frustrating. Our team came in hoping to finalize our union contract, however, due to the responses from the employer, we were unable to and will be going forward with an informational picket.
At the end of the day, we presented our community petition to the employer and told them of our intention to have an informational picket. We are still finalizing the date of the picket and will send out that information when we have it confirmed. Once a date has been finalized for the informational picket, we will hold a meeting to talk about it and answer any questions.
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Bargaining Team: Theresa Randolph, Lab Scientist; Trisha Self, Physical Therapist; Clari Ramos, Nutrition Therapy; Jessica Schell, Social Worker; Trevor Schultz, Pharmacist.
“Overall, today had a positive outcome, and we did a lot of hard work on our proposals. Still, I am a little disappointed that management did not have much to give back to us today. I am excited to see what progress we make at future meetings.”
— Trevor Schultz
“Your Bargaining Team has put in a lot of work to get to today. We have had several meetings and put a lot of thought into the proposals we presented. Our Bargaining Team is committed to ensuring that each proposal reflects the priorities of the entire unit. We have spent a lot of time considering how each sentence could be interpreted and ensuring that all language matches our collective needs across departments.”
— Trisha Self
We have just concluded our first day of bargaining for our Union contract. We presented all of our non-economic proposals, including recognition, successorship, seniority, employment practices, job security, and a grievance procedure to protect us in our jobs.
Management responded to two of our proposals and committed to responding to the rest at our next session on the 23.
We learned a lot about the process today and are hopeful about what we can accomplish at the next meeting. This is a fluid process that is continually changing, and at this time, we are limited in what specifics we can share. Throughout this process, it is important that we maintain unity and strength to win what we deserve.
After each session, we will send one of these updates and highlight opportunities for everyone to be involved in this process through our Contract Action Team.
Please reach out with any questions or concerns to your Union Rep, Becky Latzel, or a member of the Bargaining Team.
July 10, 2026
We met with TDC management and received its first economic proposal. Management proposed low wage increases, explaining that most workers received a step increase last year. Management also rejected most of our proposals.
We proposed higher wages, increases to premiums and differentials, and language to ensure that workers have a voice in decisions about health insurance.
Management said a worker committee to discuss the cost of health insurance is unnecessary because it has an open-door policy and workers can come directly to management with questions. Our proposal would create a committee that meets with management before open enrollment each year to discuss health insurance and changes to the plans.
There are many job openings, the cost of living is rising, and health insurance is expensive—particularly for workers with a high deductible.
We are preparing a response to management’s proposal. We are scheduled for a full day of bargaining on July 22, 2026.
Want more information? Drop into a contract action meeting:
July 23, 2026
6pm - 7pm
UFCW 3000
2430 NW Myre Rd. #101
Silverdale, WA 98383
For more information, call Union Rep Ryan Degouveia at 360-662-1981.
“The battle has begun…”
— Laura Niebel
Bargaining Team: Laura Niebel, Terri Dumont, Jennifer Heberling.
After months of bargaining with Rosauers for a new contract in Spokane, we won the ability for you to join your new Union family at UFCW 3000. Your new Union contract includes several workplace protections, as well as increased wages, sick leave, bereavement leave, and vacation!
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Our Bargaining Team at Capital Medical Center is overjoyed to announce that on Thursday, July 9, we reached a fully recommended tentative agreement with MultiCare for the Professionals’ first Union contract.
Copies of the full contract and wage scales will be available at the vote. Our Union Bargaining Team will also be present to make sure our coworkers get the necessary details before casting their ballots.
Importantly, this also means that the informational picket scheduled for Monday, July 13, is canceled.
Through our strength, determination, and collective power, we achieved a first contract that we are proud to bring to a vote, including significant wins like:
Just Cause protections, so we cannot be disciplined or terminated without substantiating evidence
Union seniority rights, so our tenure with CapMC will factor into various job protections and rights
Health insurance protections, including capped premium increases over the course of our Agreement and guaranteed benefit eligibility based on FTE
Union wage scales, securing minimum wage rates based on years of experience and continued growth through both across-the-board increases and step longevity advancement
Credit for work experience, so experience in our job classifications, including experience outside of and before Capital Medical Center, will factor directly into our placement on the Union wage scales
To read through the tentative agreement, discuss the future of our new Professionals Union, and cast your ballot, please attend one of the vote meetings below.
Ratification Vote
July 20
7am - 9am and 2pm - 5pm
MultiCare Capital Medical Center, Cascade Conference Room, located within the cafeteria
“So excited! At a loss for words!”
— Sela Smith, Pharmacist
“We did it!”
— Amy Myrtue, Dietitian
“I’m proud that we stuck it out, I’m proud of the work we did, and proud of this contract!”
— Kimberly Vetter, Occupational Therapist
“Excited to have made it here, and with such a great foundation that we only get to build on from here!”
— Tammy Taylor, Physical Therapist
Bargaining Team: Kimberly Vetter, Occupational Therapist; Sela Smith, Pharmacist; Tammy Taylor, Physical Therapist; Amy Myrtue, Dietitian; Callie Hills, Hospital Social Worker.
Bargaining Team: Erandy Flores; Devan Rogers; Noah Collier; David Trujillo; Robert Goldsmith.
“The bargaining process has been efficient, informative, and we hope that management returns open-minded. We are confident that what we are asking for is reasonable.”
— Noah Collier, Programming
“This is a long time coming, and I’m excited about how this bargain will open up collaborative opportunities for our members at work.”
— Devan Rogers, Operations
On Tues and Wed, July 7 and 8, our Bargaining Team and FEEST management met to negotiate your first Collective Bargaining Agreement. We made progress on several issues and reached agreements on the following:
Successorship: Protecting our Union if FEEST merges or is sold.
Union Business: Codifying the position of a Shop Steward and granting your representative access to the worksite so we can ensure the contract is followed and you can access your Union Rep.
Harassment and Discrimination: Providing strong protections that require the Employer to provide remedies if harassment or discrimination occurs against any worker.
Our Bargaining Team and FEEST management have agreed to meet next week to resume negotiations. Until then, please wear your Union gear and show solidarity with your Bargaining Team.
Next week, we hope to make progress on these proposals: Discipline and Discharge, Paid Leave, Immigration, Gender Identity, Reasonable Accommodations, health care, and Wages.
Please reach out to a Bargaining Team member if you have questions, or contact your Union Rep, David Trujillo, at (206) 436-6606.
On July 7 & 8, we met with Providence for back-to-back bargaining days to continue negotiations on our union contract. Over the course of our time together, we focused heavily on the all-too-normal issues faced by employees at our clinics- chronic understaffing leading to chronic overtime, frequent traveling between clinics to help out with other chronically understaffed clinics… All leading to an increased workload, stressful work environment, and sense of uncertainty in our schedules.
While we exchanged a number of different ideas around incentives/stipends/bonuses to try and lessen the impact on our staff- we continuously stressed to Providence that overall- these ancillary solves are just that: ancillary; and frankly, if wages at Radiant Care were competitive enough to recruit and retain talented staff, we all wouldn’t need to rely on them.
In the afternoon on Wednesday, we presented Providence with a comprehensive package proposal which aims to both illustrate (and directly address) to management that wages are the permanent fix, rather than just a band-aid. After spending a bit of time reviewing the proposal, management let us know that they’d need more time to run numbers and spend time working on their end to get us a response. While we are very eager to see what their response brings- it’s also time that we have some serious conversations with our coworkers about the next steps in our contract bargain:
“We’ve come to a critical point in negotiations and we’re going to have to make important decisions about next steps that will impact all of us- therefore, we need to hear from all of you. Show up, in person, so we all know how to move forward.” -Kelly Covington, RN
CONTRACT ACTION TEAM MEETING: Friday, July 10 from 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
In-person location in Olympia forthcoming – our Bargaining Team will follow-up with the location ASAP
In the meantime, we are also officially launching Strike Pledge Cards- follow the link below to pledge your name in solidarity & show management we are ready to take action to win a strong contract!
SIGN THE STRIKE PLEDGE! >>
St. Michael Medical Center
Bargaining Update - Sign The Strike Pledge Card Today!
Tuesday, July 7
Our Union Bargaining Team met with the Employer again on Tuesday, July 7, to continue negotiations for our next Union contract.
After more than a month of waiting for a response to our health care proposal, the Employer finally came back with a counterproposal. While we appreciate finally receiving a response, the numbers they proposed are not sufficient to keep up with projected increases in health insurance costs and would likely result in higher costs for workers.
Our Bargaining Team’s health care proposal was based on data provided by professional health care actuaries and is designed to ensure that the Employer bears the burden of projected cost increases instead of pushing those costs onto workers. Anything less increases the possibility that workers will pay more for their health care and our bargaining team believes any increases to workers is unacceptable, especially given the employer low offer on wage increases.
Frustrated but determined, our Bargaining Team got back to work and presented another comprehensive proposal for the Employer to review. Our proposal addresses many of the real needs workers are facing, including competitive market-based wages, affordable health insurance, and meaningful premium improvements. Our wage proposals did not make much movement, but they are in line with what the market is offering at other health care facilities and would help keep St. Michael competitive.
We stand by our proposals. They are realistic, data-driven, and necessary. The Employer, meanwhile, continues to act as if it can ignore the economic realities facing health care workers.
That became even more clear when the Employer sent back a second counterproposal later in the day. While they slightly increased their offer on health care, their movement on wages was minimal and insulting.
The Employer’s latest wage proposal is:
Year 1 (2026): 2.75%
Year 2 (2027): 2.50%
Year 3 (2028): 3.00%
Nothing will change until we take action. Many of your coworkers have already signed the Strike Pledge Card and are wearing Union stickers in the workplace. If you have not signed yet, now is the time!
Sign The Strike Pledge Card Today >>
Our next bargaining date with the Employer is July 16, and we have proposed additional dates for the Employer’s consideration.
"A hospital’s greatest asset is its people. A contract that fails to value them fails everyone."
— Lara Williams-Graham
"A big waste of time."
— Bryson Andrews
Bargaining Team: Robel Haile, Clinical Pharmacist; Bryson Andrews, ED Tech; Olivia Almeida, Respiratory Therapist; Merry Brandt-MacFann, CT Technologist; Lara Williams-Graham, Certified Surgical Technologist; Angela Roberson, EP Technologist; Rob Shauger, CNA.
After meeting with the Employer in June, our Bargaining Team is pleased to announce that we reached a tentative agreement with Payless Foods on a new collective bargaining agreement as of July 2.
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On July 3, members ratified our new contract at Grand Central Bakery! Our fight for a first contract gives us a stronger voice on the job and guaranteed protections and benefits. These protections and benefits go into effect right away, and management has informed our Union that wage increases should be reflected in your next paycheck, from July 2 onward.
We don’t need to wait to build power in other ways. If you’re interested in fostering an ongoing dialogue with management, join our Labor Management Committee! If you’re interested in enforcing the new contract and representing your coworkers in Weingarten meetings, become a Shop Steward!
Reach out to your Union Rep Chris Arellano at (360) 409-0241 for more information about getting involved.
We will continue building power in our workplace and with each other.
On Wednesday, June 24, our bargaining team met with CommonSpirit management for our fifth session of contract negotiations.
The conference room was very warm—nearly 80 degrees by the time we arrived at 8:30am—but our team was fired up even before the Employer’s counterproposals came later that morning. Given the recent unanimous strike vote and contract ratification by the Pharmacists at our hospital over the last two weeks, we spent our morning debriefing their negotiations, knowing their experience would give us insights into what we could expect at our own bargaining table.
Around 11am we received management’s “comprehensive” counterproposal. Comprehensive because technically it includes both economic and non-economic articles, but in quotations because there wasn’t much offered in the first place. Today’s proposals had so little movement that you would probably miss it if the Employer hadn’t read it to us:
An increase of 0.25% from their last proposal toward wages in each year of our contract, totaling 2.25% across the board for all classifications.
Rejection of any increase to premiums or differentials (lead pay, certification premium, preceptor pay, standby/on-call, and so on).
Beyond the Employer’s underwhelming offer on compensation, their proposal maintained some takeaways:
A proposal to eliminate the 15% pay-in-lieu-of-benefits wage differential for workers who opt out of health and welfare benefits (Section 9.5).
A proposal to modify the full- and part-time FTE definition as it applies to cost-sharing for health insurance premiums. This would result in workers currently considered full-time eventually paying a larger portion of monthly premiums (Section 12.1).
After receiving the proposal and moving to a conference room with a slightly lower temperature, our team continued strategizing around next steps and how to build power to win a strong contract. Ultimately, we decided it was best to return our own counterproposals at the start of our next bargaining session, rather than that afternoon. We suspect that many of the discussions we have at the table are being forgotten in the time between sessions. We look forward to returning to the bargaining table on July 16 and getting our own counterproposals to management first thing in the morning.
To get more information about ongoing negotiations and to discuss strategies to build power to win a strong union contract, join our next Contract Action Team meeting.
Tuesday, July 14
5:30pm - 6:30pm
Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 860 5668 2841
Passcode: 442907
If you haven’t already, sign our STRIKE PLEDGE CARD to show management we are ready to stand together:
And sign up to be an ACTION NETWORK LEAD to keep your coworkers informed and ready throughout bargaining:
Contract Action Network Sign-Up >>
Bargaining Team: Michelle Gilmore, Respiratory Therapist; Monica Dewitt, Pharmacy Tech; Vanessa Giles, Surgical Technologist; Chad Michels, Cardiovascular Technologist; Sissy Allison, Surgical Technologist
On June 29, members ratified both of our new contracts at Recovery Cafe. Our fight for a first contract gives us a stronger voice on the job and guaranteed protections and benefits. Recovery Cafe will follow up soon with information about the implementation timeline for wages, back pay, and other guaranteed benefits.
But we don’t need to wait to build power in other ways. We need members interested in joining our Labor Management Committee and in becoming Stewards. Follow up with your Union Rep Chris Arellano at (360) 409-0241 for more information about getting involved.
We will continue building power in our workplace, for our members, and with each other.
We’ll be returning to the bargaining table during the last week of July. We hope (and expect!) that Management will come prepared to respond to our proposals and engage in conversation so we can be efficient and productive in this process.
Read MoreWe hope that MultiCare cease the divisive and potentially illicit behavior, and we look forward to returning to the bargaining table with them on July 9. To display the power and solidarity of our union, we have officially scheduled an INFORMATIONAL PICKET outside of Capital Medical Center, details below
Read MoreWhile we were able to win some important improvements around bereavement leave, Weingarten rights, and requiring the Employer to give workers notice about the purpose of disciplinary or investigatory meetings, management continues to fall far short where it matters most: economics.
Read MoreContract negotiations kicked off with a strong and positive start, with great energy at the table on our first day. Progress was made as we delivered our initial proposals but there is still more work ahead of us. Next bargaining session date will soon be determined.
Read MoreThe Seattle Children’s Hospital MA Conference Committee met with Management Tuesday, 6/9/26. We discussed a number of concerns including a staffing complaint, changes to what holidays people can be required to work, changes to how many union members can take PTO on a single day, policies around patient behavioral health, and Weingarten rights. We want all members to feel comfortable asserting their Weingarten rights and to know that if members are asked questions they feel can lead to discipline, they have the right to have a union representative or steward present. Please make sure you assert your Weingarten rights when necessary and make sure your coworkers know their rights too!
The Urgent Care MA Committee consists of Wendy Rivas, Joey Martin, Lynnzey Ward, and David Trujillo (Union Rep 206-436-6606). Please reach out to us if you have any questions.
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.
