“At a time when workers are struggling to keep up with sky-high prices for groceries, housing, health care, and other basic necessities, we cannot afford to give a tax cut to the wealthiest people in our state,” said Sam Dancy, UFCW 3000 Executive Board Vice President and Grocery Bargaining Team Member
Our member-led Bargaining Team met with representative from Puzzle Break to lay the foundation for the negotiations of our first union contract. We discussed guidelines around how proposals will be passed, Bargaining Team availability and our desire to have consistent and timely bargaining dates moving forward.
After months of difficult negotiations and a powerful show of solidarity, we have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract! Thanks to our collective strength, we secured significant improvements, including:
Please join us in person at the UFCW 3000 Des Moines office for Contract Action Team meetings on the following dates. We will be meeting in person at the union office, but for those who cannot join in person there will be an online option. During these meetings, will be sharing updates as well as creating picket signs for an upcoming info picket.
After months of difficult negotiations, a powerful informational picket, and an overwhelming strike authorization vote, our Union Bargaining Team fought late into the night on October 8 and reached a tentative agreement on a new contract!
The Nominations are in, now it’s time to vote for who will represent you and your coworkers from Ballard, Central District, and Issaquah PCCs on the newly formed PCC Labor Management Advisory Committee (LMAC). Secure online voting will take place Wednesday, October 21 from 8am to 8pm. Every PCC store elects one LMAC representative, you may only vote on a nominee from your own store.
Following a series of highly attended vote meetings on Monday, October 5, union technical workers at St. Joseph Medical Center voted nearly unanimously to:
Reject CommonSpirit’s subpar contract offer
Authorize a STRIKE
“We set the stage and gave our comprehensive proposal letting the employer know that our priorities are to win wages that we deserve, improve our transportation benefits, win immigration protection language as well as ensuring the safety of our co-workers. We are eager to see what BDA’s response is on the 21. ” -Kota Owens, Bargaining Team Member
For the first time in history, on Tuesday, Sept 29, grocery store workers from across Washington State and North Idaho met at the same table to plan for our upcoming bargaining session with Kroger and Albertsons.
Our team met with the employer again today to continue bargaining. We have finally started discussing economics, focusing on health care and wages, which we know are our members’ top priorities. We've seen very little movement from the employer and know we need to start escalating.
Correcting the Record: Decades after Organizing Her Own Unit, Leslie Ball Is Still Fighting for Her Coworkers
Leslie Ball, a certified surgical technologist at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and a longtime UFCW 3000 Union Steward, has spent decades standing up for herself and her coworkers.
Her fight for better working conditions began in the late 1990s, when she received a 30-cent wage increase, which ended up only being a five-cent raise after her employer reduced her shift differential by a quarter. With years of experience and a deep understanding of the value surgical techs bring to the table, she knew a nickel wasn’t going to cut it. So she and a coworker, Gail Miller, started organizing their colleagues at St. Joe's despite warnings that previous organizing efforts had failed.
Within a year, they helped Radiology, Respiratory Therapy, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, and other departments form the hospital’s first Technical Unit, which ratified its first contract in 1999.
Please lookout for a vote notice once we can confirm when the ratification vote will take place. Members will all have a chance to review the vote documents and ask questions, we will also hold a meeting to discuss this historic TA very soon. Also, please thank your Bargaining Team! They worked very hard.
We’re getting ready to head to the bargaining table, and we want to hear from you!
Join our Union Bargaining Team for a Bargaining Kick-Off Meeting to talk about the upcoming negotiations, review bargaining priorities, discuss the bargaining process, and answer questions.
This is your opportunity to get involved, share what matters most to you, and help shape our priorities as we prepare for bargaining.
Meeting ID: 821 3753 7914 Passcode: 251390
Get Involved!
Strong contracts are built when members stay informed and involved. Join us as we kick off bargaining and make sure Jefferson County members’ voices are heard at the table.
We look forward to seeing you and hearing from you!
Our Union Bargaining Team has reached a Tentative Agreement with Olympic Medical Center and is recommending a YES vote!
After ten sessions across six months of negotiations, our union Bargaining Team reached the difficult but necessary decision to call for a strike authorization vote.
We’ve come to management with contract language addressing our positions being overstaffed by agency & traveler employees. Management have come to us rejecting this proposal.
Our Bargaining Team is thrilled to announce that on September 22, 2026, an overwhelming majority of our members voted YES and approved the contract! We now have a ratified contract!
Our Union Bargaining Team has been working for several months on an agreement to transition Audiology Assistants and Pathologist Assistants into the existing UFCW 3000 Kaiser Permanente Pro Tech Optical Contract and we have reached a tentative agreement. The Bargaining Team fully recommends this agreement.
We asked Management about their low wage proposals for 2027 and 2028. They responded that they weren’t focusing on cost-of-living increases and cited that people want to work at this destination employer because it has such a good culture. What do you think?
Read MoreThe rest of the day built off of that momentum and we were able to secure an agreement with the Employer that is fully recommended by our Union Bargaining Team! This offer includes a 10.5% wage increase over the life of the contract as well as increases and expansions to multiple premium pay options! We also were able to secure improvements to our scheduling language, retroactive pay, and compensation for those who are at the top of the scale.
Read More
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.
“We had a productive bargaining meeting and reached several tentative agreements, which is an encouraging sign of the progress we’re making together. While we still have work to do on the non-economic items, the discussion remained constructive. We are hopeful that we will continue building on this momentum and make further progress at our next bargaining session.” – Clari Ramos, Nutrition Pharmacist
Read MoreYesterday we met with the Employer for the second time. It was their turn to get back to us on our proposals. After their presentation our team worked the rest of the afternoon to respond to their proposals. See the tentative agreements (TAs) we've reached so far (please keep in mind that nothing is final until all members vote and approved the Contract).
Read MoreOur member-led Bargaining Team met with representatives from First and Goal on Wednesday, July 22, to continue negotiations for our first union contract.
Read MoreWe are set to meet the Employer again on August 6 and 27. You must become part of this process and ensure that your committee gets the strength and stamina to finish this contract negotiation with the best outcome possible regardless of the hurdles that they are facing at the table.
Read MoreWe believe outsourcing our union jobs to robots will erode our unity in the worksite, reduce available hours for those who need them to pay the rent, and threaten the stability of our benefits.
Read MoreLast Friday we met with the Employer for the first time. The Employer presented their initial set of non-economic proposals. Our Bargaining Committee studied their proposals, formulated counterproposals, and introduced an additional non-economic set of proposals.
Read MoreOn Monday, July 20, following a series of well-attended vote meetings, our MultiCare Capital Medical Center Professionals Bargaining Team is overjoyed to announce that our First Ever Union Contract has been ratified!
Through perseverance, dedication, and solidarity, we have transformed MultiCare Capital Medical Center and are proudly UNION REPRESENTED PROFESSIONALS!
We started our sixth day of union contract negotiations with proposals in our court, which we began with a new cadence that we thought a might help our discussions get across and reach the Employer. While we did reach a few new Tentative Agreements (a three-year duration on our contract, clarity around suggesting new premium-eligible certifications through Labor Management Committee, and the removal of some old language referencing an effective date from three years in the past…), I’m sure you can imagine, these aren’t the topics of discussion which our Bargaining Team and coworkers at SJMC care the most about.
Read MoreWe now have contract that gives us a stronger voice on the job, and we can now stand together with our Union siblings from Spokane in our next bargaining cycle.
Our new Union contract includes several workplace protections, as well as increased wages, premium wages, a union wage scale with wage escalators between each step of the scale, a pension, and stronger safety language! All of those provisions go into effect immediately.
Read More
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.
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.
Read More
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.
On June 17, 2026 Town & Country informed our Union that they would be discontinuing the eCommerce department at their worksites. In that notice, they neglected to inform our Union that they would then outsource that department to Instacart to do picking and staging of products for customers; something we found out by members reaching out to their Union Representatives after hearing it from management. Following a contentious meeting with Town & Country representatives, where they attempted to convince Union Representatives that outsourcing work is necessary to the business, our Union filed a grievance. Outsourcing is a direct violation of the Bargaining Unit recognition language of our Union Contract.
Read More
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.
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.
Correcting the Record: Decades after Organizing Her Own Unit, Leslie Ball Is Still Fighting for Her Coworkers
Leslie Ball, a certified surgical technologist at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and a longtime UFCW 3000 Union Steward, has spent decades standing up for herself and her coworkers.
Her fight for better working conditions began in the late 1990s, when she received a 30-cent wage increase, which ended up only being a five-cent raise after her employer reduced her shift differential by a quarter. With years of experience and a deep understanding of the value surgical techs bring to the table, she knew a nickel wasn’t going to cut it. So she and a coworker, Gail Miller, started organizing their colleagues at St. Joe's despite warnings that previous organizing efforts had failed.
Within a year, they helped Radiology, Respiratory Therapy, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, and other departments form the hospital’s first Technical Unit, which ratified its first contract in 1999.
Jenny C., a transporter at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, knows what it looks like when management hopes a problem will just go away.
Jenny has watched the facility's transport elevators malfunction for more than a year, filing report after report after each incident she witnessed. Supervisors did not appear to take these complaints seriously.
