“Progress at the bargaining table has moved at unprecedented speed! However, important issues such as call/standby remain unresolved.”

Our Bargaining Team: Vanessa Giles (Surgical Tech), Kat Wood (Radiology Tech), Michelle Gilmore (Respiratory Therapist), Monica DeWitt (Pharmacy Tech), Sissy Allison (Surgical Tech)

Our Union Bargaining Team met with St. Joseph Medical Center management again on February 22, 23 and March 2 to continue negotiations for our successor contract.

Understanding the need for swift action to stay competitive, contract negotiations began earlier than ever before. The employer, in their own proposals, quickly demonstrated that they shared our Bargaining Team’s sense of urgency to make changes to help recruit and retain high quality staff.

That doesn’t mean that we can only focus on wages and overlook the other important issues we face for the sake of speed. The Bargaining Team has been working to address other issues such as low census, the overuse of travelers, posting of FTE’s where needed, our slow grievance process, and much more.

We have made significant progress on the above issues, which is why our Bargaining Team decided to give management our initial economic proposal on February 23. We crafted our proposal after conducting a comprehensive market analysis that included a review of competitors such as MultiCare Tacoma General, Providence St. Peters, UW Valley Medical Center, and Swedish Medical Center.

One of the major factors considered was MultiCare’s move to eliminate all ghost steps (years with 0% increases) during their last round of negotiations. This has made it difficult for St. Joseph Medical Center to recruit and retain staff when healthcare workers know they can move down the street and get paid higher, years earlier than under our current wage structure. Thankfully, the employer agreed with our Bargaining Team’s assessment and has agreed with our proposal to eliminate all ghost steps! However, management’s plan to eliminate ghost steps is different from the Union’s, so more time will be needed to reconcile our differences.

We have also been holding management accountable to the concerning exodus of Anesthesiologist, which are required for many departments to function. Our Bargaining Team has brought the issue up at EVERY bargaining session with management reassuring us that the issue is being handled and that there is nothing to worry about. However, we haven’t seen any substantive changes that indicate that the issue has been resolved, so we will continue to discuss this issue at the bargaining table until we are confident the hospital has a good plan to handle the matter.

Our Bargaining Team will meet with management again on March 17, 24, 28 and 30 with our contract scheduled to expire on April 1. Stay tuned for further updates as bargaining progresses.