Bargaining Unit Meeting

We will be offering meetings frequently in the next few months to keep you informed about bargaining. Bring your ideas and questions.

This will be a virtual meeting on Teams.

Wednesday, December 11
6-8 pm

Microsoft Teams Need help? 
Join the meeting now 
Meeting ID: 231 664 153 287 
Passcode: nC28nr37

Dial in by phone 
+1 206-485-2614,,390930130# United States, Seattle 
(888) 313-0615,,390930130# United States (Toll-free) 
Find a local number 
Phone conference ID: 390 930 130#

Negotiations 2025

The current contract expires in March 2025.

We are asking that you complete the pre-bargaining survey to ensure all nurses have been heard. Time is of the essence.

Drawings for prizes for all those who complete!

Mares Bargaining

The Teams met with a federal mediator last week and a traditional bargaining day. We were able to reach several tentative agreements. A full description of the bargaining sessions is on the WSNA Mares webpage.

WSNA meet with Laurie Robinson, Nurse Rep

Bring all your questions and concerns for an in-person conversation.

Conference Room J from 4-7 pm at CWH on December 5

Hospital Staffing Committee 

Simmon Morton Co-chair Hospital Staffing Committee update November:

We reviewed data on retention, years of service per unit, and turnover. We are overall better than most hospitals in the state and nationally.

Only 3 ADOs reviewed. Two on ICU understaffing and one on SOU regarding having an LPN with 8 patients and unable to review the LPN’s work. There was not much we could do about the ICU ones due to no support available in house per management review. Make sure to keep doing ADOs such as these because it helps identify trends and can help cover you legally.

For the SOU complaint, it was clarified that if you split the group with an LPN, the LPN is considered the primary for those nurses. You do not need to review all charting and because they have their own license, you would not be liable for mistakes made. You do not need to do an independent assessment of the patient as long as all relevant assessments are within their scope of practice. RNs will of course need to continue to help with anything outside of the scope of practice of an LPN. They have a badge buddy and there is a policy-on-policy stat outlining this information.

We also circled back to one in peds about understaffing and having a CNA that wasn’t able to help with vitals for all patients. CNAs in peds are able to do vitals on any patient older than 1 month.

We additionally voted to approve issues in ADOs that could be prevented or improved through a change in policy or practice will officially be sent to nurse practice committee for potential changes. We need more RNs on that committee so if you are interested, please let me know! That committee is where we can actually make changes instead of just talking about them as unfortunately tends to happen in the staffing committee. 3rd Monday of the month at 1000. It will also count as a nurse clinical ladder project which will be revealed for next year soon with an increased budget and difficulty per CNO Kelly Allen.

As a reminder: make sure to follow chain of command with all ADOs. Charge RN at the minimum. Notifying Management or house supervisor as well will be more likely to get you a resolution quickly, however.

Any questions feel free to let me know! If others at the meeting want to add something feel free as well!

Conference Committee

Discussion regarding the following items:

Jobs report- open positions filling review.

Cath Lab/DI weekend work- currently working on drafting schedules to ensure coverage.

Break nurses- this has been applied to the budget for 2025. Awaiting board approval in January.

IT coverage for weekends/nights- We asked that the ability for direct contact with IT. If it would generate a demand for IT to come in, then it would go through the house supervisor. This would prevent delays.

Vacation request with holiday – We asked for clarification. If a nurse has asked for PTO and his/her holiday to work falls during this time will the holiday be approved if the nurse has fund coverage? Leadership remains firm that the PTO would not be approved over concern that the holiday may not be covered.

Holiday work- If a nurse did not want to use PTO for a holiday when the unit is closed or overstaffed may the nurse be utilized as a sitter or task nurse? Leadership holds fast that these are not described within the CBA and would not allow. We think that providing opportunities to nurses would serve both patient care and help keep PTO for vacation use.

Grievances

Current grievance: MBU- Nurse are being denied a second vacation. Nurses were told they apply for request off per “rolling requests” and limited to 5 days. A grievance has been filed to include all nurses affected. A request for information has been sent to HR as well.

Questions

If a nurse has self-scheduled the following, does the nurse receive RBS pay for Tuesday?

The nurse will not receive RBS as the nurse has self-scheduled. Now if the manager has agreed to this based on the facility need, the nurse should receive the RBS pay. (Get this in writing)

Monday 1000-2200
Tuesday 0700-0700

5.5 Rest Between Shifts

In the event a nurse is required to work with less than eleven and one-half (11½) unbroken hours off duty between shifts [ten (10) hours for nurses working twelve (12) hour shifts], all time worked until the nurse receives eleven and one-half (11½) unbroken hours of rest [ten (10) hours for nurses working twelve (12) hour shifts] will be paid at the overtime rate.

Unit Reps

We are looking for Unit Reps. We would like to see 2-3 nurses become Unit Reps for each unit. The training is free. If you are interested in keeping your unit quickly informed, especially during contract negotiations, please contact Jenny Galassi, Nurse Organizer Cell: 206-707-2948 jgalassi@wsna.org or Laurie Robinson Nurse Representative Cell: 206-620-4136 lrobinson@wsna.org for more information.

Unit Rep Training December 4 11 am - noon

This will be virtual training. If you are interested or curious about the role of representing your unit, please attend.  

Microsoft Teams Need help? 
Join the meeting now 
Meeting ID: 227 724 819 73 
Passcode: X4mY6fy3

Dial in by phone 
+1 206-485-2614,,275524066# United States, Seattle 
(888) 313-0615,,275524066# United States (Toll-free) 
Find a local number 
Phone conference ID: 275 524 066#

With deep respect, we say goodbye to Paul Stamilio in his role as the Chair for the local unit bargaining unit. Paul has stepped down from this role. Thank you, Paul, for your advocation of nurses and patients!

In solidarity,

Open- Chair
Stephanie Gates- Co-Chair
Karen Doiron- Secretary
Simon Morton- Treasurer
Paul Molenaar- Membership 
Brittney Lamb- Grievance Officer
Isaiah Ray- Grievance Officer

Laurie Robinson Nurse Representative
Cell: 206-620-4136
lrobinson@wsna.org

Jenny Galassi Nurse Organizer
Cell: 206-707-2948
jgalassi@wsna.org

WSNA Membership

 If you are not a WSNA member please consider completing a membership application today! Just click on the link!