On Wednesday April 21, your WSNA team of registered nurses met with UWMC Management and Administration for our 3^rd bargaining session. Both sides exchanged all new proposals. During our 2^nd bargaining session, WSNA offered an economic proposal.

As many of you may already have seen on the UWMC Labor Relations Website, WSNA proposed wage increases as follows:

Wages – The union proposed wages increases for 2021 based upon steps in the current wage scale. Under this proposal, steps 1 to 10 would receive a 6% increase, steps 11 to 21 would receive 5%, and steps 22 to 30 would receive 7%. The union also proposed to increase wages across the board 4% in 2022. This is in an effort to recognize that UWMC is currently lagging behind other Seattle area hospitals.

The employer has not responded to our proposal as of yet stating that they are waiting on comparative studies that should be available in May.

During the last couple of sessions, the employer has proposed some significant takeaways for RNs at Montlake including:

• The employer has proposed an extended probationary period beyond the current 6 months for new hires
• The employer has proposed modified seniority language that could significantly dilute your existing seniority
• The employer has proposed an elimination of shift length security allowing them to schedule RNs for 8, 10 or 12 hour shifts at their discretion
• The employer has proposed Multi campus floating that may include UWMC Montlake and Northwest. This floating proposal did not excluded short term reassignments for RNs at another campus
• The employer has proposed the ability to force WSNA to bargain any provision of the contract during the life of the contract
• The employer has proposed a reduction in the amount of Rest RNs should be able to receive between shifts without triggering Rest Between Shifts premium
• The employer proposed their ability to bypass seniority and internal hiring practices to hire RNs from outside of UWMC Montlake onto shifts they believe lack experienced RNs
• Lastly, the employer proposed the removal of the RN2 and RN3 job descriptions from within the contract so that they could modify them as needed during the life of the contract

Your WSNA bargaining team is dedicated to pushing back on proposals that would negatively impact your working conditions. We are also committed to retaining the benefits that support Registered Nurses in providing the best care possible.

To stay up to date on what is going on around the state in nursing, log on to wsna.org

In Solidarity,
Your 2021 WSNA Bargaining Team members,

Teresa Wren MIC,

Doug Harper NICU,

Alexandra Mariani, 7NE

Mike Crandall O.R.

Charles James PACU,

Erika Speck­hardt 5SA,

Grace Jones 5SE,

Chris Jakubowski Cardiac Procedures,

Kaitlyn McDow 5E