CommonSpirit St. Joseph Medical Center Technical Unit - Bargaining Update — INFORMATIONAL PICKET ANNOUNCED!

At our seventh session this contract cycle, our Union Bargaining Team representing the Techs at St. Joseph Medical Center found ourselves almost exactly where we were in our fifth and sixth sessions. After nearly two hours spent waiting on management’s counterproposals, we were again presented with a myriad of rejections, “held” articles—meaning their position had not changed since their previous iteration, which was often the iteration before that or simply existing contract language—and a quarter-of-one-percent (.25%) wage increase since their last proposal, totaling 2.50% in each year.

The Employer did, however, present new language in Article 9.4 regarding current contract language related to how experience credit granted to new hires for placement on the wage scale would trigger a “leapfrog” for current workers. When our team asked about the intent of the Employer’s addition to the Article, it seemed that both teams left with more questions than answers.

Beyond the aggravation caused by the Employer’s responses, we were also made aware of several more situations in which St. Joseph Medical Center management pulled bargaining unit members aside and questioned them about their Union activity and the potential for a serious labor dispute. We made it clear to the Employer at the bargaining table that this conduct is unacceptable, and we demanded that they put a stop to it.

We want to make it clear to all of our coworkers: your boss should not be questioning you about participation in our Union. If you or a coworker have been spoken to about anything related to ongoing negotiations or participation in Union activity, you are strongly encouraged to document the incident and call our Union Rep, Charlie King, at (206) 436-6518.

Our next bargaining date with the Employer is scheduled for August 12. We hope CommonSpirit uses the time between sessions to refocus its priorities on working with us toward a fair contract.

As we said in our previous update: nothing will change unless we take action together. Let’s show St. Joe’s management how unified we are.

Informational Picket

Wed, Aug 19, 2026
2pm - 4pm
St. Joseph Medical Center
1717 S J St
Tacoma, WA 98405

RSVP Now for Our Informational Picket >>

Contract Action Team Meeting

Tues, Aug 4
5:30pm - 6:30pm

Join Zoom Meeting >>
Meeting ID: 811 1026 4685
Passcode: 952476

Workers throughout the hospital have already signed the strike pledge card. If you have not yet, you can sign it by following the link below.

Sign the Strike Pledge >>

“Not sure what to say if I shouldn’t use profanity … this all just feels incredibly unserious.”

— Vanessa Giles, Certified Surgical Technologist

Bargaining Team: Michelle Gilmore, Respiratory Therapist; Monica Dewitt, Pharmacy Tech; Sissy Allison, Surgical Technologist; Chad Michels, Cardiovascular Technologist; Leslie Ball, Surgical Technologist; Vanessa Giles, Surgical Technologist.

PRMCE RN - Positive Movement

Bargaining Team: Kristen Crowder, Kimball Conlon, Carrie Rimel, Stephanie Sausman, Tulena Lammers, Terry Pierce, Scott Ryan, and Juan Stout.

“Our team had many small wins while working toward our end goals: staffing and retention for nurses and patients in our community. We had many productive conversations to share perspectives on high-priority issues. Let’s keep up the pressure and support the Bargaining Team.”

This week, our team bargained on two back-to-back dates, July 27–28. We had highly productive sessions and made significant progress on language wins while narrowing proposals.

We continued deep discussions on staffing language, low census, meal and rest breaks, competitive wages, and licensure and education benefits. We met with Providence to discuss barriers to accessing our education benefits and how the process can be improved so more nurses can access their benefits. We reached a tentative agreement on language that assures leave and reimbursement requests will not be unreasonably denied and that nurses will be reimbursed up to the contractual benefit regardless of budgetary constraints. We also discussed ways to educate nurses and leadership about the application and approval process.

There were lengthy discussions regarding missed meal and rest breaks and how to best assure that nurses are actually receiving breaks. Providence believes that all nurses are reporting their received breaks accurately and believes that the two units with the highest percentage of missed breaks are the Emergency Department and Labor and Delivery. We are working to find solutions, but we need all nurses to report missed breaks to support our Bargaining Team’s efforts at the table.

We return to the bargaining table on August 31 and September 1.

Contract Action Team Meetings

• Tues, Aug 4, and Tues, Aug 18

• 8pm

Our team will share highlights and tentative agreements reached in our updates. Join us for the Contract Action Team meetings to dig into the details.

Note: Our team is being transparent about proposals throughout the bargaining process, and the final recommended agreement may not include these items.

Priorities We Highlighted This Week

• Competitive wages for recruitment and retention

• Improvements to staffing and Staffing Committee language

• Emergent Needs Coverage Pay

• Break relief solutions

• Improvements to the assignment of low census, including clarification and mitigation for excessive low census

• Low Census Standby will be offered to nurses placed on low census

• Improvements to Charge premium

• Pension plan in addition to the current 401k retirement plan

New Tentative Agreements Reached

• Definition of Christmas Eve nights and weekends for night-shift nurses

• Adding floats to Skills Departments and Units, Exhibit B

• Weekend premium moving from $4.00 to $4.20 on April 30, 2027

• Study prep time allowed outside of scheduled work time

• Immigration and ICE Enforcement MOU

• Nurse education and licensure

All updates can be found on our website! >>

Take Action

• Continue to wear your Yellow and Blue Union colors.

• We have the right to wear our Union bandanas, swag, and colors—let’s get creative and have fun with it.

• File with L&I for missed meal breaks: Healthcare Workers Complaint >>

Questions, or want to find out how you can get involved? Contact a member of the Bargaining Team or Union Rep Anthony Cantu at 206-436-6566.

St. Michael Medical Center Service and Dietary - We Proposed Historic Health Care Improvements

Bargaining Team: Susan Mayer, Cook; Pamela Reese, EVS.

On July 21, our Union Bargaining Team met with the Employer and received its response to our latest economic proposal. While the Employer’s offer was disappointing, the session still resulted in meaningful progress.

After reviewing the Employer’s proposal, our team returned to work and finalized a major health care proposal that we have been developing behind the scenes for weeks. If accepted by the Employer, this proposal would significantly reduce what workers pay for health insurance while also substantially lowering deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs.

The proposal would provide Service and Dietary workers with the same health insurance plan currently available to the Pro-Tech unit, the Sound Health & Wellness Trust, creating long-overdue parity between the two bargaining units.

The comparison below shows the potential savings under the proposed Sound Health & Wellness Trust.

Healthcare Cost Comparison		Biweekly Employee Premiums (each paycheck)				Deductible		Out-of-Pocket Maximums
		Employee Only	Employee + Child(ren)	Employee + Spouse	Family Plan	Individual	Family	Individual	Family
Sound Health & Wellness Trust	Kaiser HMO	$18.00	$26.00	$38.00	$46.00	$750	$1,500	$2,750	$5,500
	Premera PPO	$22.00	$34.00	$46.00	$50.00	$750	$1,500	$2,750	$5,500
Employer's Current Medical Plan Options	Integrated Core	$68.02	$192.26	$161.32	$277.59	$1,500	$3,000	$6,000	$12,000
	Integrated Basic	$20.00	$139.39	$114.84	$196.77	$2,500	$5,000	$6,600	$13,200
	Integrated HDHP	$0.00	$85.53	$72.40	$126.62	$3,400	$6,800	$6,450	$12,900
Sound Health & Wellness Trust premiums include medical, dental, and vision coverage and are the same for all eligible workers, regardless of hours worked. The Employer rates shown are full-time medical premiums only; dental and vision coverage cost extra. Part-time employees pay higher premiums under the Employer’s plans than the rates listed above.

Sound Health & Wellness Trust premiums include medical, dental, and vision coverage and are the same for all eligible workers, regardless of hours worked. The Employer rates shown are full-time medical premiums only; dental and vision coverage cost extra. Part-time employees pay higher premiums under the Employer’s plans than the rates listed above.

Furthermore, the Sound Health & Wellness Trust only requires 60 hours in a month to qualify for employee-only coverage or 80 hours in a month to qualify for dependent coverage. The plan costs the same for all workers, regardless of whether they are full-time or part-time.

Combined with market-based wage increases and improvements to shift, weekend, and other premiums, these health care changes would go a long way toward addressing the hospital’s ongoing recruitment and retention problems.

We left the meeting encouraged by management’s initial response to the proposal. While the Employer has not yet agreed to these changes, management expressed a willingness to continue the conversation. Our Bargaining Team is excited to keep pushing toward what could be a truly historic improvement for workers covered by this contract.

Next Bargaining Session

August 5

We look forward to receiving the Employer’s response to our proposed health care changes.

“I feel that this day is going to go down in history.”

— Susan Mayer

Labcorp Is Pushing Hard. What Do We Do? Stand Up and Fight Back!

Labcorp is extremely out of touch. The Employer is coming to us with very few solutions and very little movement, and it stormed out of our session. The Employer claims it has “come to the table in the spirit of trying to reach an agreement that provides fair compensation and a positive workplace for Labcorp workers.” Still, it called our wage proposals “crazy,” “insane,” and “unreasonable.”

Instead of its previously meager first-year offer of a 1.5% increase, the Employer is now offering a 1.75% increase. The Employer is also unwilling to commit to promptly fixing paycheck issues that have been widespread and ongoing, negatively affecting low-wage workers who are already struggling to make ends meet.

Labcorp UFCW 3000 members will start organizing a series of gradually escalating actions.

“We’re the first-place division, but they don’t want to compensate us for our hard work.”

— Lisa

“I’m sad and frustrated. They walked away from the table because we called them out on not being willing to bring solutions.”

— Sam

It is time for us to show the Employer that we are strong and willing to stand together. Please attend a Contract Action Team meeting at 7pm on Tuesday to hear more about bargaining and discuss future actions.

July 28, 2026 - 7pm Contract Action Team Meeting

• Meeting ID: 873 1725 6986

• Passcode: 169221

Negotiations will take place on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.

Bargaining Team: Shelby Tyner, Serenity MacLennan, Kyle Chrisman, Lisa McGee, Sam McVay, Grace Nagamatsu, Erin Vaughn, David Trujillo, Union Rep; and Cesar R Quiles-Borrero, Negotiator.

If you have questions or would like to get more involved in organizing a fair contract, please reach out to our Union Rep, David Trujillo, at 206-436-6606 or 1-866-210-3000, ext. 6606.

Trios Health RN - Bargaining Update

Trios Health RN
Bargaining Update

July 17, 2026

Our RN Bargaining Team began our second bargaining date with management eager to see responses to our initial set of proposals, after providing management with more than 15 pages of proposals at our first session on June 24.

Our excitement quickly turned to disappointment when the Employer let us know that it would not have economic proposals—wages, premiums, and other items—for us that day. These sections were excluded from the Employer’s responses.

Despite this, we got right to work once we received the Employer’s non-economic counterproposals and returned our own set of counters to the Employer by the end of the day.

We reached a few minor tentative agreements, including:

• Some contract-wide job title and benefits title updates

• Mirroring paycheck availability deadlines for direct deposit

We discussed the duration of our contract with the Employer throughout the day. We proposed a three-year agreement, while the Employer indicated that it would prefer to wait until more sections of the contract are agreed upon before reaching a formal agreement. The Employer hinted at a shorter or longer duration, depending on how negotiations progress.

We indicated that while our formal proposal is for three years, we are open to discussing the duration as negotiations continue.

Lastly, we brought it to the Employer’s attention that disqualifying nurses from bonus shift incentive pay because they called out sick during that period may violate Washington state protected sick leave laws. We look forward to hearing back from management on this at our next session.

Following our next session, we plan to announce our next Bargaining Update and Contract Action Team meeting. Stay tuned for future updates and look out for our next meeting!

“We appreciate the nurses stickering up on July 16! Your support at the hospital helps us support you at the bargaining table.”

— Tami Ottenbreit, OB RN

Bargaining Team: Tami Ottenbreit, OB RN; Stephanie Weibel, ER RN; Yesina Ellis, ICU RN; Holly Hurst, Med Surg RN; Karen Campbell, Surgery RN.

If you are interested in being a member of our Contract Action Team, call our Union Rep, Juanita Quezada, at (509) 340-7407.

Confluence Health - Bargaining Begins at Confluence Health for the Professional First Contract

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.

MultiCare Capital Medical Center Professionals - Tentative Agreement Reached! Vote Scheduled! Informational picket canceled!

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.

Providence Radiant Care - Bargaining Update

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!

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.