Today we met for our 6^th negotiation session.

We spent a significant amount of time continuing our conversation on vacations. We gave management our proposal, which includes asking management to commit to allowing a minimum number of nurses off per unit, taking into account the size of the unit. We recognize that granting staff nurses vacation requests will have an impact on the ability to meet minimum staffing, but we also feel very strongly based on our feedback from all of you that not getting vacations is causing the hospital to lose nurses, further hurting staffing. Nurses are already short most of the time and need to take care of their mental health and get rest in order to give the best care.

We discussed the Leave of Absence language, and agreed that leaves of absences should not be granted for nurses to accept travel assignments.

We agreed in concept on a new pilot program that includes allowing nurses who leave CWH and be able to come back and retain their seniority. We believe this will help ensure that nurses who have left CWH are not discouraged from returning.

We also discussed benefits for domestic partnership. Management raised questions about whether this benefit should be narrowed to state-registered domestic partnerships, but we ended up agreeing to keep the language and the benefit as is.

We finished up the day with our ​discussion around Pool Nurses. We share the common interests of more effectively utilizing and retaining pool nurses, allowing them to maintain their skills and abilities, while establishing guardrails to not allow this position to be a seniority place holder. We reached a tentative agreement to require pool nurses to be available to be scheduled 72 hours per quarter. ​

We have tentatively agreed to discuss economics on May 25.

Your team has nearly used up the hours allotted to us so it is time for us to ask you, our bargaining unit, to consider supporting your team in continuing the bargaining process by donating PTO hours. Keep your eyes out for PTO donation forms and consider supporting your bargaining team.

Next week we will hope to wrap up our discussion regarding vacations, and continuing on conversation on Pool Nurses and finalize our leave of absence tentative agreement. Please wear your new "I support my bargaining team!" Buttons found in your breakroom when we are back at the table Friday May 13!

Questions? Contact WSNA Nurse Representative Carmen Garrison, BSN, RN at cgarrison@wsna.org