Hello, Peace Health St Joseph Bellingham

Welcome to the update. Here are the highlights:

• Contract bargaining starts on January 21 and 22
• We got a disappointing response from management regarding our insurance changes. We disagree, but the changes remain as of this time. 

Contract bargaining starts on January 21 and 22. Wear your WSNA gear and come to our bargaining update meetings

Our team has been working on a comprehensive proposal to give management on the issues we identified through our experience, conversations and survey. We have a draft version and have hit the biggest. We plan to go over our priorities and triage of those priorities at our first Bargaining Update Meeting. They will be held virtually every Monday at 4:30pm through bargaining here:

Microsoft Teams link

Join the meeting now

Meeting ID: 276 971 414 999

We will be ramping up visibility and action through our campaign to get a fair contract. With that in mind, please wear your WSNA shirts on all bargaining days starting January 21. Stand with us!

Disappointing Response from Management on Insurance Issue

We attempted to bargain with management over the unilateral changes to our benefits that grossly are worse for us and better for them. You can read the full response in the image below:

The TLDR of their response reads: contractually, Peace Health doesn’t need to bargain with us. That Peace Health is not interested in addressing our concerns. That Peace Health has not received any complaints, and they have a hotline, so whatever.

We hate this. We should tell them we hate this.

If you have had any problems, concerns or delays in care related to the changes:

1. Call the priority scheduling line at 833.838.6307 if you need to establish care with a PeaceHealth provider. By calling the line, you're letting management know that an employee and/or their dependent needs care and that you haven't been able to get a timely appointment with an in-network provider.
2. If you've experienced any of the problems above — including mixed messages about coverage, inconsistent answers during open enrollment, trouble finding a provider, or long wait times for vital care — submit a MyHR ticket reporting the issue by clicking on "AskHR" in Crossroads. When you receive a confirmation email, forward it to your WSNA Nurse Representative so we can keep a tally of the tickets nurses have submitted. Gchesterman@wsna.org

This all said, the contract language isn’t what we want it to be. While we continue to bargain with management over this, we need to update our contract to make sure Peace Health can’t hurt us this way again. After you have called the hotline and sent a MyHR complaint. Be ready to support us at the table. On January 21 in your shirt. Follow our home page and contact us to get more involved.

Your Team,

Laura Bayes, Robin Cully, Jenn Engelhart, Tracy Pullar, Amber Pouley, Jen Hampton, Kristin Malmo, Errin Hull, and Kelly Carroll.