The Staff and Supervisors Bargaining Team met with management on Wednesday, March 9th for our 7th negotiation session. We have been working hard to come to an agreement about the nurse recognition bonus, additional holidays, and the GWI. With that said, we have rejected the county's 1.5% GWI counter-proposal.

Here is why:

During our 6th session on Feb. 23, the County provided counter proposals for all of the above including the general wage increase. The general wage increase had many concerning takeaways including new language for the shared staffing agreement. In order to attain the 1.5% general wage increase, the bargaining unit would have to agree with the following takeaways.

The takeaways included:

• The County asked the union to agree that if a mutually acceptable agreement on the shared staffing was not met by May 1, the general wage increase would not be given. Shared Staffing in CHS for the staffing bargaining unit, the County wants to expand from First Steps and WIC to add other programs such as Parent-Child Health, Family Planning, Dental, and Primary Care. There has been no input about this proposal from the nurses and staff doing this work.
• The County proposed takeaway in the Holiday portion of our contract no longer allowed RNs to put an earned worked holiday into a bank and utilize it at a time that suited them best. RNs would now have to get paid out for the holiday immediately and forever moving forward.
• The County proposes that employees only be eligible for a paid holiday when the EE is in paid status both before AND after the holiday rather than the current requirement that the EE only is in paid status the day before OR the day after to qualify.
• The County also proposed that Continuing Education requests be pro-rated by FTE and subject to pre-approval of the manager
• Another proposal by the employer is in regards to overtime payout. They want RNs to give up any weekend or shift differentials as part of overtime pay calculations as it is currently done.
• The County asked that an existing arbitration within the Supervisor bargaining unit involving call-back differential be dropped as part of the larger agreement, changing the pay practice for all moving forward.
• The County proposal is TLT employees hired after Dec. 31, 2022, will only be given annual step increases at the discretion of their management on the employee's hire date.
• The County would like to take away weekend pay and shift differential from the calculation from daily overtime.

WSNA's proposal on the 9^th dropped all items except two items that the County had previously proposed earlier in the bargaining process.

Those are:

• The acceptance of the two additional holidays of Juneteenth and Indigenous People Day.
• We also agreed to accept the Recognition bonus along with the offset of the previous bonus payout. To remove the offset, the County wanted all of the changes in many of the conditions below.

We are waiting to hear back from the employer as to whether they are in agreement with our acceptance of their earlier proposal of additional holidays and recognition bonuses.

We would like to invite you to join us for a joint (Staff and Supervisor) Local Unit meeting to discuss these unanticipated mid-term negotiations so that we can answer any questions you may have and help everyone understand the chronology of how we got to the place we are.

When: Wednesday, March 16

What time: 6 p.m.

Where: Your home computer or cell phone via TEAMs virtual meeting

Contact one of the bargaining team members or your WSNA Nurse Representative for the meeting link. This information has also been sent out by email to those who have current emails on file with WSNA.

In Solidarity,

Tyler Breier, Chair, Staff

Tami Nesler, Grievance Officer, staff

Carolyn Clark, Grievance officer, staff

Nicole Klein, Co-Chair, supervisors

Louise Peterson, Secretary/Treasurer, supervisors

Michelle Moore, WSNA nurse rep, staff

Ed Zercher, WSNA nurse rep, supervisors

Questions or comments? Find your bargaining team contact info via these links:

For staff RNs: https://www.wsna.org/union/seattle-king-county-health-dept-staff
For supervisor RNs: https://www.wsna.org/union/seattle-king-county-health-dept-supervisors