With what management came back to the table with yesterday, it is with little surprise that our team has requested mediation. Our next session is scheduled for Dec. 14, 2021. Management continues to do nothing to address our safe staffing concerns stemming from nurses leaving our hospital and our community. They just are not listening.

Meanwhile, our WSNA team is hearing a clear and overwhelming message from nurses that management needs to do more and do better. Many nurses are talking about a potential strike. Our team wants to know what every single nurse thinks - if you are willing to strike or not. Our bargaining team connected with many of you about the strike and thought it would be helpful to share some basics about next steps:

Dear WSNA nurse colleagues,

After talking to a lot of you, we wanted to outline what comes next.

The strike process works like this:

1. As soon as we complete our strike assessment, we submit our request to hold a strike vote to the WSNA cabinet (made up of elected bedside nurses).
2. That team takes a few days to convene and issue a decision.
3. Assuming we get an authorization to take the vote, we then give SJMC nurses a 7 day notice of the strike vote days and times.
4. We hold our strike vote
5. Assuming our vote is successful, we then present our vote results to the WSNA cabinet who will take a few days to authorize a strike.
6. If we get our authorization, WSNA gives the hospital a 10 day notice so they can start preparing for the strike.

The hospital prepares for a strike by attempting to hire as many scabs as possible. They also cancel elective surgeries and try to move as many patients as possible out of the hospital (through early discharges, transfers etc.).

As far as the day of the strike, what usually happens is that the nurses on the off-going shift give report (either written or verbal) to any non-union nurses the hospital can scrounge up (think managers, directors, educators, maybe Ruth Flint?). After all our union nurses leave, the scab nurses are typically brought in under heavy security while we are on the picket line.

As you can imagine, walking out of the hospital and standing on that line can be incredibly emotional. Hospital management depends on those intense emotions and your innate compassion to keep you at the bedside or to entice you to cross the line. It’s important to remind ourselves that management could stop this process at any point by meeting our very reasonable demands at the bargaining table. They have moved a lot on economics, but they still have offered nothing substantive when it comes to patient safety, nurse retention, or safety for nurses inside and outside our hospital.

This is a process with multiple check points for good reason. Striking is the strongest possible weapon we have, and it must be done with clarity and overwhelming support from as many SJMC nurses as possible. We need feedback from each and every nurse.

If you have not signed a strike pledge or had a conversation with a WSNA leader about it, or would like to help move these conversations, please contact Grace LaMonte at GLaMonte@wsna.org.

In Solidarity Your Negotiating Team; Dian Davis, Linda Burbank, Yunna Flenord, Brandon Hardaway, Katy Heffernan, Matthew McGuire, Shelly Mead, Chelsey Roos, Emily D’Anna, Sally Budack, Naomi Kincade

Questions? Contact WSNA Nurse Representative Barbara Friesen at bfriesen@wsna.org.