Our Bargaining Committee has made a lot of progress on non-economic issues, including a big win reaching a tentative agreement on an article addressing Recovery Cafe member harassment of staff. While we are eager to continue bargaining with our Employer, we also want to make sure our coworkers know the aspects of our upcoming economic proposal.
Read MoreWe began bargaining for a new contract in late May, and after nearly five months of negotiations, we are proud to announce that we reached an agreement with Capital Medical. From the very start, our priority was clear: secure a contract that is competitive with Providence St. Peter and win some of the language that staff at other MultiCare hospitals already have.
Read MoreAfter nearly 11 hours at the bargaining table, we walked away without a deal. Capital Medical Center management continues to oppose some of our proposals on critical issues: safe staffing, fair wages, incentive and extra shift pay, meal and rest breaks, continuing education, PTO, FMLA, and health insurance.
Read MoreOver the past few sessions, our Capital Medical RN bargaining team has been working hard to move negotiations forward on a successor contract. While we have reached tentative agreements on many language items, we have not reached an agreement on a lot of economic pieces. In our most recent session on September 19, we put all our outstanding proposals on the table. These proposals are not minor details—they are critical to recruiting and retaining nurses at our hospital.
Let's be clear—our priorities aren't optional. Nurses need:
Better staffing solutions and manageable patient loads
Incentive pay for vacant shifts
Competitive wages and benefits that recruit and retain RNs
Improvements to report pay for on-call nurses
Increases to premiums
Respect for the work we do every single day
These proposals are the solutions we need to provide quality care for our patients. We've also made it clear that our hospital must remain competitive with Providence St. Peter's new contract. Our wage scale and contract need to be competitive with Providence. Anything less will only make staffing challenges worse.
We will be bargaining into the night on September 23 and 25. We asked that you show your support by:
Wearing your union buttons and colors—make your solidarity visible
Talk to your coworkers—make sure everyone knows what's at stake
Be ready—if management drags their feet, we'll need to take action!
Bargaining Team: Bonnie Verellen, Dennis Verellen, Cindy Dixon
Questions or ready to get more involved? Contact our bargaining team or reach out to Kimberly Starkweather at (206) 436-6515.
This is our time. Our patients, our profession, our fight.
Our team met with the Employer on September 16 & 17. We had some good discussions and gave them our economic proposal. We will be back at the table on October 1 & 2 where we are hoping to receive an economic response from the Employer and we will respond to their last non-economic proposal.
Read MoreWe will be holding an informational picket on Thursday, October 2, from 3:30pm to 5:00pm on the corner of Myhre Road and Ridgetop Blvd. We look forward to seeing our fellow RNs, friends, family, and community members on our informational picket line! Remember that children and friendly pets are welcomed!
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 MoreOn September 15, our bargaining team met with Recovery Cafe and made significant progress on our harassment language—including language protecting staff if a Recovery Cafe member harasses staff. We are moving through non-economics and plan to introduce economics at an upcoming session. This would include our vacation, healthcare and retirement benefits, wages, and other economic items.
We'll be discussing the next steps in our bargaining process, highlights of the economic proposal, and how we can win what we deserve at our membership meeting this Thursday at 7:00 PM.
We will hold our next contract membership meeting on September 18 at 7:00 PM.
If you have any questions, please reach out to your bargaining team or your union representative Allison Hanley at (206) 436-6586.
Yesterday (Wednesday, September 17) we held an all-day contract vote on Management’s “Best and Final” offer we were presented with in our last bargaining session on September 5. While we were able to win many improvements on premiums and contract language prior to September 5th, there are still significant unresolved issues. In its totality, the Hospital’s last proposal was not enough to improve staffing, so we recommended a NO vote.
Read MoreWith our 2nd meeting with the employer under our belts, we are excited to share some updates. On Friday September 12, we continued conversations around non-economics that included rights of union stewards, bulletin boards, union access to the premises, sub-contracting, and others. SRH listened to our concerns and agreed to many of our proposals, maybe with a tweak or two.
Read MoreFirst, some good news. Our team and Fresenius management tentatively agreed to add the PCT III job class to the contract, which we’re hopeful will bring fairer pay and job duty distribution.
Read MoreBargaining Team: Shantelle George, Sr MA Phlebotomy; Alison DeBoise, Insurance Biller 1; Charlie King, Union Rep; Nico Montanero, Negotiator; Mackenzie Weiland, Float Clinician; Michel Avery, Clinical Trainer 1
We exchanged economic proposals during our two recent bargaining sessions. Key decision makers from management were candid about the financial situation looking ahead. We had reservations on management's proposals, but we did get creative and come up with counterproposals that we believe help address management's financial concerns while still respecting our hard work. 2026 will be an unpredictable year, but we are working with management to add language to the contract that would help find alternatives to layoffs and health center closures. They proposed a two-year agreement in hopes that PP is in a better place financially in 2027.
Management is confident that health insurance premiums will be going up significantly next year and they proposed that both staff and employer share the cost of the increase and that staff take on the majority of that increase. We countered that management should take the bulk of that increase if not all of it. Management is also proposing staff accrue PTO and sick leave instead of the current preloading practice and we are pushing back.
Talks are still ongoing with management on creating more equitable access to training and advancement for staff. We're continuing discussions with management in hopes of making progress towards an agreement, and our next sessions are scheduled for September 29 and 30.
We last met with Recovery Café on September 4 to continue our negotiations. Recovery Café has maintained their position that they want to keep the ability to fire or discipline people without giving them a good reason. It is difficult to overstate how radical this position is.
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 Friday, September 5 our Bargaining Team met with Management to continue negotiations. We began at 9am and stayed until September 6 at 2:30am Unfortunately, in their last proposal that would resolve the remaining issues, we were given a “Best and Final” offer. We are recommending a “no” vote and moving forward with a contract vote and informational picket to highlight our issues and share our message with the community.
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 MoreOur bargaining committee met the employer committee for the first time on August 29. The parties exchange non-economic proposals. Our team introduced the first set of non-economic proposals that seek to improve the working conditions at Skagit Regional Health. Further bargaining dates are scheduled for 9/12 and 10/1.
Read MoreOn Wednesday, August 27, our bargaining team met with management for our first official day of negotiations on our first union contract and it was a really productive day!
We began our first bargaining day putting the finishing touches on what we would later present to the employer as our initial contract proposal. Our initial proposal primarily focused on some of the "non-economic" (may not directly relate to money) workplace protections and union rights we hope to win in this process, for instance:
Union Representation: This section establishes union stewards, who are one of us, elected by us, to help in grievance and investigatory matters like Weingarten meetings. A Weingarten meeting is an investigatory meeting conducted by management which could lead to discipline.
Just Cause: We also proposed just cause, which means that there needs to be progressive discipline, rather than the employer having the ability to fire us at-will. They have to document every infraction and we have an opportunity to dispute it if that discipline is unfair or goes against what the contract says.
Labor Management Committee: This is a committee where management has to hear our concerns about working conditions and the administration of the agreement.
Grievance Procedure: Grievance procedures are important to help us enforce our contract, whether related to discipline, scheduling, pay, etc.
After presenting our initial proposals to the employer, we spent the remainder of the day discussing and finalizing proposals to provide to the employer at our next session, including economics (wages, premiums, and more!).
We have scheduled our first Contract Action Team Meeting from 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM, where members of the bargaining team will be available (with the representative Ian Jacobson from the union).
Bargaining Team: Lindsey Gilbert, Mali Olson and Ronda Duluoz
"Day one down!!"
On 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 Monday, August 25, our RN Bargaining Team met with Hospital management to continue negotiations. We secured a tentative agreement that locks in the Hospital’s 401(k) contributions for the life of the contract—management cannot cut them. We also won new language granting RNs access to the Hospital’s cash balance retirement plan beginning January 2027.
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.
