On Thursday, August 29, our Virtual Health Bargaining Team met with Management to continue exchanging proposals and working towards our next collective bargaining agreement. Given Management’s limited availability in the afternoon, we opted to meet with the Employer virtually in order to maximize our time at the table.

It turned out that this was the right decision- as we were able to continue providing the Employer with new proposals on our end, but we also received our first responses from Management on some articles we had presented at our last session, even reaching agreements on a few of the things we’d proposed, such as updating our Union Steward language to read more modern, and clarifying some practices around layoffs and recall roster (ideally something we will never have to deal with; but good to have these protections if need-be).

After our meeting with Management in the morning, we worked diligently into the early afternoon to make sure we could propose management with proposals reflecting some of our highest priorities:

• Enhancing our protections against discrimination; with the hopes to eliminate workplace bullying and provide safe recourse for members who report any related concerns to management.

• A proposal on our health benefits, primarily regarding affordability for ourselves and for dependents on our plan.

• Wages! Our payscale proposal aims to bring our pay back into the competitive regional market for healthcare workers, and also aims to provide us with more substantiative wage increases as we gain more & more experience at Virtual Health.

Now that we feel that proposals which speak to our highest priorities in this bargain have been passed across the table to Management, we are eagerly awaiting our next-scheduled bargaining date on September 19 to get their responses, & are hopeful that their responses reflect the hard work we all dedicate to our patients each and every day.

“Human Kindness is their slogan, so let’s hope that’s reflected in Management’s responses to our wages and benefits!” -Chelan Henley; Virtual Companion

If you have any questions about ongoing negotiations, please reach out to a member of the Bargaining Team, or to your Union Representative Aimee Oien at 360-662-1981