Skagit Regional Health - Nominate Your 2022 Bargaining Team!

We are aiming to begin contract negotiations for SRH by early February and we need a strong team of leaders to represent the workforce. As health care workers during this pandemic we have a lot of leverage, but we know there are a lot of issues to address.

Bargaining Team members are able to:

• Represent the needs of all departments and job classes, not just their own

• Inspire their co-workers to take action to win a strong contract

• Communicate bargaining priorities and updates back to their co-workers

While we can’t have every department represented at the bargaining table, we will have representation from a wide range of departments. This year we will be conducting a democratic process to fill 7 seats on our Bargaining Team.

Nominations are open through January 7, but act soon to let us know your priorities!

Nominate yourself or a co-worker at: bit.ly/Skagit-BT22

Only members in good standing are able to participate on the Bargaining Team or vote on the contract. Need to join UFCW21? Fill out our membership application at: join.ufcw.org/join/21

Providence Regional Medical Center Everett (Pro) - Adding to our bargaining power

Our Bargaining Team met with Management for bargaining on Tuesday, December 21. While it was a shorter session, we were able to make some progress.

Earlier this month, ED Crisis counselors voted UNANIMOUSLY to join our bargaining unit and our contract. Management has agreed to bargain over their wages during these bargaining sessions.

We also were able to make progress on:

• Improvements to the step progressions in the wage scale

• Improvements to weekend differential where departments are required to work every other weekend

• PTO scheduling for Case Management

We expect more from Management on:

• Cost of living increases

• Licensure Pay

• Some outstanding market adjustments

Don’t miss out on important Union bargaining updates, benefits, and more. Keep your contact information up to date with our Union: ufcw21.org/update-your-information

Conifer St. Michael Medical Center - Tentative Agreement Reached – Vote Scheduled

Your Bargaining Team has reached a tentative agreement with management on new collective bargaining agreement for Conifer employees at St. Michael Medical Center. Your Bargaining Team unanimously recommends a “YES” vote! 

The proposed changes to the agreement include:

• Historic wage increases for every bargaining unit employee!

• Increased Paid Time Off (PTO) accrual rates for many employees,

• New reporting structure for safety and staffing concerns, requiring a written response from management,

• Posting of work schedules at least 14 days before the start of the schedule,

• Guaranteed four hours of pay when reporting to work but sent home due to an emergency, 

• And much more!

We are very excited about this tentative agreement, which we believe will help recruit and retain staff with significantly higher pay and improved working conditions.

The full details of the offer will be made available during our online vote meeting on Tuesday, January 4: 

It’s extremely important that members attend the zoom meeting to get a full understanding of the employer’s offer and have your questions answered. However, voting will not take place at this meeting.

We will be voting online via “SimplyVoting” on Wednesday, January 5 from 6:00AM to 8:00PM. You will be receiving an email from UFCW 21 via “SimplyVoting” with your unique login information. 

In order to vote, everyone needs to make sure their personal email is up to date in our records. If you did not receive this announcement via email, please visit ufcw21.org/update-your-information and update your information. If you do not receive an email to vote on Wednesday January 5, then please reach out to Union Representative Ryan Degouveia 360-662-1989 no later than 5PM on the day of the vote to provide an updated email address. 

UFCW 21 Member Story: Brad Exercises His Rights

Brad Starkey, cleaning worker and UFCW 21 member

Happy #MemberMonday! Today’s spotlight is on Brad Starkey, EVS worker at Sacred Heart hospital and proud UFCW 21 member.

Brad is an experienced cleaning worker who understands how to handle management while he’s at work. He says that sometimes, his manager will visit where he works 2 to 5 times a day to monitor what he’s doing under the guise of “seeing if anybody needs help.” In Brad’s words, he knows that, if he needs, he “can easily pick up the phone and ask for help — a fact that management knows all too well.”

Recently, the EVS manager and another of Brad’s supervisors brought him into their office to ask him questions. He quickly determined that they were trying to find something — anything — that they could discipline Brad about. At that point in the conversation, Brad informed management that he wanted to have Union Representation present during this questioning. His manager stated that Brad could not do that, at which point Brad quoted his Weingarten Rights, which establish the right for workers to have union representations at investigatory interviews.

At this point, Brad simply refused to continue further conversation with management and subsequently called his rep. Brad says that this has been a long-standing problem with management at Sacred Heart, refusing to acknowledge caregivers’ Weingarten rights.

We commend Brad for advocating for himself and leaning on his legal rights to representation as a union worker! As an essential cleaning worker, he and his co-workers deserve dignity and respect in the workplace, and asserting your rights as a worker is one way to keep management in check. Thank you for all your work, Brad! #UnionStrong #EssentialWorkers #WeingartenRights

Remember: your UFCW 21 member card includes information about your Weingarten rights and we encourage you to keep your card on you, especially while at work! Are you a member, but haven’t received your card yet? Please get in touch with us and we can help.

Building our power as the largest UFCW Local in the nation

On Tuesday December 14, our member-led executive board discussed and unanimously approved a Merger Agreement between our Union, UFCW 21 and the members of UFCW 1439! The same day the board members of UFCW local 1439 also approved the merger. This is exciting news and both boards feel strongly that together we will increase our ability to continue the fight for improved wages, working conditions and benefits as well as improve our staffing, schedules and workplace safety. Members will have the opportunity to vote to approve this powerful merger during our upcoming in-person Winter General Membership Meetings in February 2022. A formal notice for the meetings with times and locations will be sent to all members in advance of the meetings once we have locations confirmed. 

“When we are united, with thousands more worker voices across the state coming together as one, we have more resources to win better contracts and enforce those contracts. The new local will have over 33 million dollars in the strike and defense fund and over 110 staff to bargain and enforce our contracts.”

Kyong Barry, Front End Supervisor, Albertsons, South Auburn, E-Board Member
Derek Roybal, Cardiac Cath-Lab Technologist, Providence Sacred Heart, Spokane, E-Board Member

“This is huge! This merger unites over 50,000 workers in health care, grocery stores, food packing and processing plants, along with many other industries in Idaho, Washington and Oregon. This will help us all win higher wages, better benefits and safer workplaces.” 

Cindy Kirkpatrick-Cockett, Pharmacy Technician, Kaiser-Permanente, Tacoma South Medical, E-Board Member
Jeff Smith, Home Clerk, Fred Meyer, Snohomish, E-Board Member

Advantages of joining our Locals together

• Together our locals will form UFCW 3000, the largest UFCW local in the country!

• Members’ dues will not increase as a result of this merger.

• When we unite, we win. It’s that simple. Building power across industries like grocery stores, meat-cutters, retail, health care, packing and processing, and others—helps us win better contracts and organize more workplaces where workers want a union but don’t yet have one.

• Both our unions represent thousands of workers in Eastern Washington— this will double the size of our collective membership in Eastern and Central Washington Counties.

• UFCW health care members and retail grocery store members acting together in counties in western Washington have already made great strides together— in places like Kitsap and Snohomish counties. The merger will expand that kind of solidarity to Spokane, Tri-Cities, Wenatchee and many other areas in the central and eastern parts of the state.

• Our newly united union will have an expanded Member Resource Center, where members can call to get quick answers to questions including on weekends and late-night hours. We will also have a new Member Education Department and invest in Workforce Development and Training.

Jefferson / Clallam Albertsons + Safeway Department Managers Overwhelmingly Ratify Wage Matrix

The results our online ratification vote are in, and members have overwhelmingly ratified the grievance settlement that guarantees that department heads get the currently bargained journeyperson wage increase while also having access to higher increases based on store volume.

Providence Centralia - President’s Day will continue to be a paid holiday in 2022

We previously reported that President’s Day would be replaced with Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2022. We have heard from the bargaining unit and bargaining committee that this change would create scheduling issues and should be discussed at the bargaining table in 2022.

As so, President’s Day will remain a paid holiday in 2022 and Martin Luther King Jr. Day will not be a paid holiday.

If you have any questions, please reach out to your Union Representative, Erin McCoy (206) 436-6598.

Providence RadiantCare - Providence Proposes a Wage Scale!

On December 15, we met with Providence RadiantCare for our fourth session. We made it clear to Providence that we are not interested in their proposed merit system and wage ranges. After much discussion around the matter, Providence proposed a wage sale with 20 steps and annual increases. Unfortunately, the proposed increases for the first year are below 4% and the proposed wage rates are below other Providence hospitals like Centralia and Everett.

Under their proposal, workers would be initially placed onto the wage step which is closest to their current hourly rate with a guarantee of a 3% increase for LPNs and RTs and .5% increase for all other classifications. This placement language does not consider workers’ experience in their job classification or provide competitive wage increases. We told Providence that we need placement language which considers experience and looks at the market!

On January 11, we will be presenting our compensation counter proposal and a petition asking for monetary recognition for our work during the last year and a half. If you have not signed onto the petition, please sign-on as soon as possible! 

If you have any questions about bargaining or workplace issues, please reach out to your union representative, Erin McCoy 206-436-6598. . 

In solidarity, your PRCS bargaining team: Branden Raftery (Lacey - Dosimetrist), Paul Lofing (Aberdeen - RT), Kelly Covington (Lacey - RN) Winter Everson (Lacey - RT) 

Seattle Children’s Hospital Tech - Bargaining Begins!

Yesterday, December 14, our team met with management for a productive first bargaining session. We presented management with a flurry of non-economic proposals spanning nine different articles of our contract. These proposals came directly from feedback we heard from our coworkers and aim to address many of the issues we have all been facing at work. 

This included a robust Union Access language proposal, which would ensure that every new hire gets a chance to learn about their union and every worker will be able to be kept up to date on what is happening with their Union; a complete overhaul of our Equal Opportunity language, demanding the management be held accountable to upholding the values of equity they say they are committed to; a new parking and transit policy that would make commuting to and from work significantly more affordable; and several other strong proposals. Management also gave us their initial proposals, which our team has started to work on responses to. We hope to continue making progress on these language proposals in our next session so we can clear the way for our extremely important discussion about economic issues. Keep an eye out for more updates as we have more information to share our next session on Tuesday, December 21. 

We invite you to join our second virtual Contract Action Team meeting, where we will talk about what’s happening at the table in further detail and explain what workers can do to help support our efforts at the table, tomorrow on Thursday, December 16 @ 3:30PM. 

“We proposed some highly requested changes today and we are tentatively hopeful that management will cooperate in passing these desperately needed proposals.”

— Madison Derksema, Pharmacy Tech

Our SCH Tech bargaining team: Matt Brabant - Respiratory Educator, Madison Derksema - Pharmacy Tech, Angela Ballard – Surgical Tech, Kellie Koenig – Ultrasound Tech, Ashley Strickland – Respiratory Transport, Tyler Schaffer – Anesthesia Tech, Tesfaldet Kidanemariam – Respiratory Therapist 

Capital Medical Center Bargaining Update - MultiCare is failing our community

“MultiCare’s disrespectful behavior leaves us with no choice but to take action!”
-Bargaining Team: Adam Swigart, Julie Hinchcliff, and Maureen Ciglia

Your Bargaining Team met with Management again on November 17 and December 8 to continue negotiations for your successor contract.

After much delay, the Employer finally provided an economic counteroffer that included increases to wages and various differentials. It was not worth the wait. Management’s proposal not only fails to bring our wages to market standards, but it also fails to consider today’s historic inflation rate that has caused the price of everything from groceries to gasoline to skyrocket. 

MULTICARE’S CURRENT OFFER
Year 1 - 5.25%
Year 2 - 1.50%
Year 3 - 1.50%

MultiCare acknowledged in our meeting that LifePoint (your previous Employer) had a very different style of management that focused on depressing workers’ wages, which resulting in today’s uncompetitive wage scales. However, in the same breath, Management stated that they do not plan on fixing the problem with this contract, willing to maintain the status quo of low wages at Capital Medical Center for the next three years.

Your Bargaining Team challenged them by pointing out that we are in a staffing crisis that is in most part caused by wages. We also reminded them that we’re currently going through what is now being called the “Great Resignation,” with employees easily finding new jobs with significantly higher pay and oftentimes a hefty signing bonus. Failure to raise our wages to market competitive rates will likely lead to many employees looking for positions elsewhere.

To make matters worse, MultiCare has also maintained their demands for contractual takeaways. They continue to demand that we cut your Extended Illness Bank (EIB) accruals by about 40%, adopt a new PTO system that would negatively impact nearly 50 employees, and remove the day after Thanksgiving as a paid holiday.

MultiCare cannot place the blame on LifePoint when MultiCare is the one refusing to offer fair wage increases, when MultiCare is proposing benefit takeaways, and when MultiCare is refusing to invest in Capital Medical Center. So long as they continue this behavior, MultiCare will continue to fail our community.

We will meet with the employer again on December 20 and are working to schedule additional dates into the new year.

Next Steps:

• Stand up against MultiCare by reaching out to a Bargaining Team member or Union Representative to get “MultiCare is failing our Community” stickers that you can wear in your workplace.

• Sign the online petition demanding a fair contract! https://bit.ly/CMC-Petition

• Attend regular Contract Action Team (CAT) meetings to hear the latest updates regarding negotiations, plan actions to pressure management, and learn how to get your co-workers involved. Our next meeting is being held virtually TONIGHT, December 15 @ 6 PM.

  
  CMC Contract Action Team Meeting
  Wednesday, December 15 @ 6 PM
  Contact your Bargaining Team or Union Rep for Zoom details. Details will be emailed out.

It’s Time to Act: The Campaign for a Safe Staffing Law in Washington State Is HERE

Join the launch of our statewide campaign to ensure that we can care for patients safely, retain qualified staff, recruit new people into our industry, and create sustainable and resilient healthcare systems for our communities.

Together, we’ll discuss the details of our legislative proposal and our plan to win real change for healthcare workers statewide.

Telephone Town Hall and Campaign Launch
TODAY - Monday, December 13
6:00 pm

Union members will receive a call at 6:00 pm on Monday 12/13. See your email or text messages for call details, or speak with your union shop steward, delegate, representative, or organizer.

Albertsons / Safeway Department Manager Vote - Tentative Agreement Reached, Contract Votes Scheduled

UFCW 21, 367 and Teamsters 38 have reached a tentative settlement pending the ratification of the membership, arising from a grievance filed on behalf of all effected members for unilateral changes and implementation of the existing company’s matrix formula for department managers beyond positions bargained over in the contract. 

Wage increases, as part of the settlement, went into effect December 5, 2021, pending ratification of the membership.

Vote meetings will be held on Thursday, December 16 at 8:30am - 930am & 6:00 - 7:00pm where we will be reviewing the tentative agreement and answering any questions.

Secure online voting will begin on December 16 at 12AM and end at 11:59PM. You will receive a ballot through your email where you can review the highlight sheet and vote on to accept the settlement. All active effected members in good standing in the following positions, Safeway/Albertsons Produce Managers, Safeway/Albertsons Starbucks Managers, Safeway/Albertsons Floral Managers, Safeway/Albertsons Deli Assistant Manager, Albertsons Butcher Block Supervisor, Safeway Seafood Department Managers and Safeway GMHBC Department Managers are eligible to vote but must have an active, correct email on file with the union in order to vote by secure email.

Make sure your information is up to date!

If you have questions, please contact Andy Heyman 206-436-6539

Kaiser Permanente - Contracts Ratified!

All three UFCW 21 Kaiser Permanente Washington contracts were ratified this week.

Eastern Washington Pharmacy voted December 6 to join the Pharmacy membership and approve Spokane Specific Agreements.

Western Washington Pro Tech Optical and Pharmacy contracts were voted online and ratified on December 8.

Alliance National Agreement was ratified in all three contracts!

Highlights include:

• Four Year Agreement with wage increases each year and additional 2% bonuses in years three and four.

• Improvements to Premiums

• Improved contract language-Education, Seniority, Rebid & Layoff, Staffing and Labor Management Committees

• Increase in Retiree Medical Benefits from $350 for each year of service to $1000 for each year

• Higher Funding of the Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust

• Changes to the Pensions for all Western Washington Optical and Pharmacy Workers with additional employer contributions

• New National Agreement language which addresses:

  • Staffing

  • Racial Justice

• Patient and Worker Safety

• Problem and Dispute Resolution

• Additional Information will be made available.

Welcome, Spokane Pharmacy Techs to UFCW21!

Please reach out to your Union Representative for any questions or needed support:
Western Washington
Rhonda Fisher-Ivie
Union Representative
(206) 436-6584

Eastern Washington
Maureen Hatton
Union Representative
(509) 340-7370

Christina Delgado
UFCW 21 Contract Specialist
(425) 623-7073

Bargaining Team: Tiffany Yeates and Jackie McFarlen, Union Stewards Spokane Clinics

Capital Medical Center - Healthcare Amendments Ratified

We are pleased to report that members at Capital Medical Center unanimously voted to approve the proposed changes to our healthcare plans!

Members at Capital Medical Center will now pay what other MultiCare employees pay for healthcare, saving many families hundreds of dollars each month on premiums costs. Most importantly, these savings were achieved without removing or reducing other plan benefits such as deductibles, co-pays, network coverage, and out of pocket maximums.

If you have any questions regarding these changes, please contact Union Representative Ian Jacobson at (206) 436-6550.

WhidbeyHealth - All Workers Deserve a Wage Increase and Retention Bonus

A few weeks ago WhidbeyHealth proposed increasing current employees below $18/hour to $18/hour and changing the base rate for all classifications to $18/hour. Your bargaining committee reviewed the proposal and identified that this would result in wage compression. For example, a Housekeeper II at Step 8 would be earning the same as a Housekeeper II at Step 0-7.

As a committee, we decided that we could agree to increasing current employees to $18/hour, but we must begin to bargain over wages for the rest of the bargaining unit immediately to address the wage compression. Per the CBAs, we are supposed to go back to the bargaining table in June 2022 for the Pro/Tech/LPN unit and October 2022 for the Service/Support unit. Our request to Whidbey is that we go to the bargaining table in January 2022 for both units.

Additionally, we believe it is divisive and unfair that they are offering non-union employees a retention bonus and not union employees. Given that, we are proposing that all bargaining unit employees receive a retention bonus! We are also asking WhidbeyHealth to provide sign-on bonuses to new hires in order to recruit new staff and reject that the base rates for new hires increase to $18/hour. Increasing the base rates will create a greater wage compression for current employees. We believe the better approach is for WhidbeyHealth to provide sign-on bonuses. Until this date, WhidbeyHealth has not approached us with any sign-on bonuses for any union classifications.

WhidbeyHealth needs to acknowledge the work that current employees have done in the past year and a half during a pandemic and must respect us as workers! We need wage increases for ALL and bonuses which will retain and recruit staff!

PRMCE Tech - Bargaining Continues

Our Bargaining Team met with Management on Thursday, December 9 for our third bargaining session. In the spirit of expedited bargaining, we are making a lot of progress on our language and economic proposals. We scheduled 5 bargaining dates for this contract and we are hopeful to wrap up negotiations within that timeframe if progress continues. There are still areas for Management to improve their economic offer, and we are awaiting their response to our latest economic proposal.

We’ve made progress on:

• Increases to differentials

• Improvements to step progressions in the wage scale

• Increases to education funds

We expect more from Management on:

• Cost of living increases

• Market Adjustments

Our next bargaining sessions are January 18 and January 26.

Sign the Petition for Respect and Retention!
https://bit.ly/Providence-United21

Your PRMCE Tech Bargaining Team:
Maria Goodall, Vascular Ultrasound
Darryl Keffer, Respiratory
Rodney Powers, Diagnostic Imaging
Terryl Smith, Pharmacy Tech

UPDATE YOUR CONTACT INFO! ufcw21.org/update-your-information

PRMCE Professionals - Management Responds on Economics

Our bargaining team met with management on Wednesday to receive a response to our economic proposals. 

We’ve made progress on:

• Market adjustments for many positions

• Education development funds

• Tuition Reimbursement

We expect more from management on:

• Cost of living increases

• Licensure pay

• Weekend differential

• Some outstanding market adjustments

• Bonuses

We were also able to reach a tentative agreement on Bereavement Leave updating our contract to reflect PRMCE’s policy, allowing for additional leave for certain family members.

Be sure to sign the retention and appreciation petition!

“We’re encouraged by the progress we saw at the bargaining table today, but still need management to respect our key issues.”

Our PRMCE Professionals Bargaining Team: Deb Anderson, Medical Lab; Sara Dillon, Case Management; Emily Conner, Nutrition

Town & Country Markets - Resolving Safety Issues

In 2019, we won new safety language for the first time ever in our contract to establish a Master Safety Committee to address issues that are coming up in the workplace safety committees or problems that are not getting resolved.

We recently met with Town & Country Markets and discussed the safety issues that our members had brought up.

• Outdated policies and procedures

• Damaged gloves in the Deli

• No band aids in the first aid kits

• Request for more in depth trainings

After meeting in our Master Safety Committee, Town and Country Markets were able to resolve some of the top concerns.

The next Master Committee meeting is in January, and we want to hear from you! If you have any safety concerns or would like more training on safety, fill out this quick survey: bit.ly/Safety-Survey21

If you are interested in getting more involved in your union, sign up for leadership training: ufcw21.org/steward-training

Providence Radiant Care - Providence Proposes Merit Increases and No Wage Scale! We Demand a Wage Scale!

On December 7, we met for the third time with Providence’s negotiating team. In this session, we discussed the remaining non-economic articles like employment practices, seniority, definitions of contract terms, hours of work and overtime, and leaves of absence. Providence responded with language like other new contracts like the PCH Tech and Service contracts. 

A point of contract is that Providence rejected our proposal to implement job classification seniority. Their proposal is to implement bargaining unit seniority. Your seniority date and hire date are different. Your hire date never changes, but your seniority date begins when you enter the bargaining unit or when you move into a new job classification. Under bargaining unit seniority, a worker would retain their seniority even if they moved into a new job classification. This means a therapist with five years of bargaining unit seniority could be laid off instead of the new therapist with 15 years of bargaining unit seniority. We believe job classification seniority is more equitable and other Providence technical units use job classification seniority. 

We also proposed wages, benefits, and premium pay on December 7. We proposed that 1) all workers should receive a bonus for the lack of wage increase in the last year and to acknowledge our work during the pandemic 2) at least a 7% increase upon ratification of the contract 3) a competitive wage scale with 28 steps 4) annual anniversary date wage increases 5) annual cost of living increases 6) internal equity language to ensure new hires with the same experience as current employees do not get paid more than incumbents. 

Providence rejected our proposals and proposed to continue their current merit pay system. We voiced our concerns about merit pay. Providence told us that they do not have a metric to quantify merit and they believe workers should not reach the “maximum” on their pay ranges. We are extremely disappointed with Providence’s proposal given that we have made a lot of progress on non-economic issues. 

We will be responding on December 15 and reiterating that we need a wage scale and do not want a merit-based pay system! On December 16 at 5:45 PM, we will hold a Contract Action Team (CAT) meeting over Zoom to review bargaining and plan future workplace actions! If you have any questions, please talk to your bargaining team or Union Rep Erin McCoy emcccoy@ufcw21.org. 

In solidarity, your PRCS bargaining team: Branden Raftery (Lacey - Dosimetrist), Paul Lofing (Aberdeen - RT), Kelly Covington (Lacey - RN) Winter Everson (Lacey - RT)