LET’S BE CLEAR!

Your WSNA officers approached management back in late September / early October to propose an extension of the MOU which is set to expire at end of December. We finally received a counter proposal early in December which we rejected. Why?

Managements proposal included an agreement for nurses to commit to work 6, 8, or 10 shifts above their FTE. However, the dollar amount was less than adequate and only a minimal figure above the current MOU amount. And in return, management would determine what dates and shifts you would work for those extra shifts, and you would only receive a lump sum payment at the end of the 12-week period. If you had to cancel one of the shifts the amount would be reduced by 5%.

WSNA counter proposed, which management rejected. WSNA received yet another counter proposal from leadership late last week. We have again rejected this for the reasons noted above – it includes the same rights of management to determine the shift and days the nurse would work with payment at the end of 8 weeks with a low increase in funds. We have submitted our own counter proposal which would address management’s rationale for their request (need to reduce the number of travelers at Skagit currently). WSNA is aware that travel nurses have currently more than doubled in number in 2022 from the 2021 year and feel that Skagit could do more to support their tenured employees. We believe this new proposal would meet both our needs. But as you know we are rapidly approaching the end of the year and are fraught with Holiday absences house-wide.

At the very best, we hope they will accept our proposal which means we will be doing a FLASH vote, hopefully scheduled on the 29^th, to expedite approval of this new MOU. At the very least we hope and anticipate a simple roll over of the current MOU with some increase in monetary compensation per MOU shift.

PLEASE… watch emails and the private WSNA Skagit Facebook group for updates! We will need to pull together a rapid vote, if necessary, on December 29. We will update all of you as soon as we know more. Feel free to reach out to your officers if you have any questions or email WSNA Nurse Representative Sue Dunlap at sdunlap@wsna.org.