Fellow nurses,

I am proud of how the Montlake nurse bargaining team represented you in bargaining over the 2021 to 2023 contract. Eight nurses who work with you daily rearranged their lives to represent almost two thousand nurses to UWMC Montlake management and the University of Washington leadership.

Two unions have already closed their contracts with 0% increases in pay for the next two years. Union surveys of members gathered before negotiations focused our attention on the wage gap between UWMC ML and other Seattle hospitals as the most significant concern for the RNs. Eight nurses, ranging from one to more than 30 years of experience at UW, stood up for you and gave you a voice at the bargaining table. You mobilized by sharing your economic hardship stories, attended Local Unit meetings, joined our Facebook Group, showed your support by wearing WSNA buttons and badge buddies, and, most important, kept your coworkers informed and engaged. Your solidarity proved to management that they were bargaining with all of the nurses at UWMC-Montlake, not just the eight at the table. As a result, the nurses at UW working together moved the employer from their original offer of 0% pay increases over two years to 8%! This will be the most significant wage increase we have ever received. Once the contract is ratified, all nurses, members or not, stand to gain 6% in wage increase on July 1.

The employer proposed multiple takeaways that would have had a detrimental effect on your working conditions in a myriad of ways:

1. No wage increase.
2. Eliminate shift length protections for RNs with >10 and 20 years seniority.
3. Extending probationary period beyond six months for new hires.
4. Modified seniority language. Substitute unit seniority for UW seniority.
5. Eliminate shift length security, allowing managers to schedule RNs 8, 10, or 12-hour shifts at their discretion.
6. Multi-campus floating that may include UWMC Montlake and Northwest with a $4.00 premium. Float pools would not receive the premium. This floating proposal did not exclude short-term reassignments.
7. Mid-contract bargaining.
8. Reduction in the current 12-hour rest between shifts for eight and 10-hour RNs to 10.5 hours.
9. Bypass seniority and internal hiring practices to hire RNs outside of UWMC Montlake directly into day shifts in the ICU, 5E, 5SE, 5SA, and 6SA.
10. Require Standby for NICU, Perinatal Daily, and ED.
11. RN 3s to waive overtime for admin duties.
12. Removing the RN2 and RN3 job descriptions from the contract, allowing modifications at will.

Your bargaining team presented many proposals to improve further the RN contract that didn't make it into the final agreement, but we will keep fighting for those improvements. Of course, with all negotiations come some compromises and concessions. We initially declined all their takeaways in kind, but it became apparent the employer would not budge from some key ideas: intercampus floating and standby for 24/7 units.

According to Collins dictionary, "A union is a workers' organization which represents its members and which tries to improve things such as their working conditions and pay." All nurses at UW Montlake make up the WSNA Montlake – and as part of the WSNA, we are part of nearly 15,000 nurses in Washington. These numbers give us our power, but it comes with balancing the needs and interests of all members and not just our own.

I am voting yes to ratify this contract because I am proud of our work to reach this tentative agreement. However, you should all vote your conscience when it comes to the tentative agreement. I only ask that you consider the impact we all have on each other when you weigh your vote.

In Solidarity,

Chris Jakubowski BSN, RN
Your WSNA Montlake local unit co-chair