We met with management today for day one of a three day bargaining marathon before our contract expires. Our concerns about staffing and breaks have not been adequately addressed – we need everyone to be prepared to take action in order to get a fair contract.

• MultiCare’s proposed expansion for Good Samaritan: financial facts and findings
• Informational Picket FAQs: An Explainer
• Thursday sip and chat information
• Call for bargaining observers!

MultiCare Good Samaritan Expansion
Facts & Questions from Certificate of Need Application

MultiCare is currently engaged in the Washington Department of Health (DOH) approval process to build a new patient care tower for Good Samaritan. This new tower will not replace the existing tower but will be located on the Good Samaritan campus, adding 160 acute care beds to the hospital. The Washington State Nurses Association has requested a public hearing for the project. The hearing – and the deadline for public comments – is scheduled for April 28, 2023. If you want to submit your written testimony for the hearing, please email Nurse Representative Janet Stewart at jstewart@wsna.org. Here are some interesting and troubling facts and questions from MultiCare’s application documents.

At Good Samaritan negotiations, we have been asking MultiCare questions about how it intends to staff the proposed tower point-blank, especially when it has not been able to staff the existing beds. We have asked about robot nurses (like it implemented in Deaconess), virtual nurses (as it told bargaining unit nurses in a joint leadership meeting with Banyan Medical Systems), and the concept of “team nursing” (which it implemented without bargaining with the Union in the Family Birth Center) which dilutes the amount of time a registered nurse could spend with their patients. We have received nothing of substance in return and no clear answers. Instead, we’ve heard about the philosophy of nursing, we’ve heard that current short staffing levels don’t lead to negative patient outcomes, and we’ve heard that the Nurse Staffing Committee is the place to discuss appropriate staffing (note that the NSC – which includes the Chief Nursing Executive – determined what the appropriate level of staffing should be; the Hospital’s president sent the Chief Financial Officer to deliver the message that the Hospital would remain at a lesser level of staffing – it’s hard to read that as anything but “money beats nurses.”

What exactly is a picket? An explainer.

Let’s be very clear – there is no WSNA picket planned at Good Samaritan Hospital, but we know that there have been conversations and questions raised. We want to answer some of the questions we’ve heard.

So, what is an informational picket? On a day that nurses regularly work, nurses march, carry picket signs, and hand out leaflets on the public sidewalks in front of the hospital to amplify concerns to the hospital’s leadership and to the community. Nurses work and continue to work – an informational picket is *not* a work stoppage or strike.

Here are some more answers to questions we’ve heard about info pickets.

Thursday Sip and Chat:

Your bargaining team has a LOT of information to share – we’ll be holding another virtual sip and chat at 8:00 on Thursday, 3/30. We recommend downloading the Teams app before logging on to the meeting.

Join the meeting link

Call for observers: Two more sessions left before the contract expires!

Contact organizer Grace (glamonte@wsna.org or 206-553-9794) to sign up as an observer for the 30^th and the 31st. This is a crucial time to show management that we’re paying attention! Thanks so much to our observers who showed up today.

In solidarity, your bargaining team:
Mindy Thornton, Jared Richardson, Aaron Bradley, Raeli Korzeniecki, Dawn Morrell, Anne Landen, Eren Dao, Ashley Eubanks, Atalia Lapkin, Erin Butler, and Paul Grantham

Questions/Issues, contact Janet Stewart, WSNA Nurse Representative jstewart@wsna.org.

Need shirts (larger sizes are now available), buttons, stickers, or want to know how to get involved: contact Grace LaMonte, WSNA Organizer glamonte@wsna.org.