Seattle Children’s nurses fighting for their rights, set to info picket Sept. 30

Seattle Children’s nurses are in a massive contract fight and will hold an informational picket Tuesday, Sept. 30 to voice their anger over the hospital’s unresponsiveness in negotiations.

The Washington State Nurses Association, which represents over 2,100 nurses at Children’s, will be holding the informational picket outside the hospital (4800 Sand Point Way in Seattle) from 6 a.m.-9 a.m. and 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Seattle Children’s hired a prominent anti-union law firm to conduct these negotiations, and administration is proposing deleting long-held union protections from the contract. Seattle Children’s is also saying “no” to proposals nurses need to continue providing excellent care.

The nurses are fighting for several issues, including:

• Workplace violence prevention: Greater protections for nurses and patients against workplace violence, including moving swiftly on a pilot program to screen for weapons and enhancing security on the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Health Unit.
• Hospital-wide break nurses: Not all units have break nurses, which means when nurses take a break, they leave another nurse with an unsafe double load of patients. Seattle Children’s nurses want dedicated relief nurses so that they can take the breaks they are legally entitled to without compromising patient care.
• Higher wages: Nurse wages at Seattle Children fall behind many other West Coast children’s hospitals.
• Increased sick time accrual: Nurses are proposing increased sick leave accrual so that they are able to take sick time without the fear of discipline or losing their jobs. Sick nurses should be able to stay home when they’re sick—and not endanger co-workers and vulnerable young patients

Nurses are also fighting significant anti-union proposals from Seattle Children’s that include eliminating long-standing contract guarantees like union security, dues deductions from paychecks, and employer-paid health premiums.

The law firm Seattle Children’s hired to sit at the negotiating table for them, Morgan Lewis, is the firm used by anti-union employers such as Tesla, SpaceX and Amazon. The firm is representing SpaceX in a lawsuit arguing that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional.

Seattle Children’s Hospital is the wealthiest and most profitable large hospital system in Washington. Its profit margin of 14% in the 2024 fiscal year and 13% in 2025 through the third quarter provide a large cushion against future uncertainty in the healthcare industry.

Seattle Children’s decides where to put its money and it needs to invest in the people who make excellent patient care possible.