Seattle Children’s nurses to take strike vote Dec. 21 and 22

Registered nurses at Seattle Children’s Hospital will be voting Dec. 21 and 22 on whether to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike to secure a fair contract and to protest employer unfair labor practices.

If the nurses go on strike, it will be the first strike in the hospital’s 118-year history.

The vote comes after 32 bargaining sessions, an informational picket, a full-page ad in Seattle Times, and a social media reel by Seattle Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson urging the hospital to bargain in good faith.

Electronic voting opens at midnight Dec. 21 and closes at 1 p.m. Dec. 22.

The nurses are taking this strike vote as a last resort.

“We don’t want a labor dispute. We don’t want to strike. We want a fair contract that protects nurses’ legal rights, ensures patient safety, compensates nurses injured by workplace violence, and maintains the union strength that has made this institution exceptional,” the nurses wrote in a full-page ad Nov. 30 in The Seattle Times.

Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson threw in her support of the nurses reaching a fair contract by posting a social media reel on Dec. 12.

“I am calling on Seattle Children’s to step up and do right by nurses, their patients, and our entire city,” she said. “In Seattle, we stand with nurses.”

The Washington State Nurses Association represents the 2,100 nurses employed by Seattle Children’s, and the Union’s Labor Executive Council authorized the nurses there to hold a strike vote after meeting with members of the bargaining team on Dec. 14.

Negotiations with Seattle Children’s nurses have been like nothing the nurses have ever seen. Seattle Children’s transformed a historically collaborative, respectful relationship with its nurses into bargaining fraught with anti-union attacks and proposals that undermine the hospital’s stated values. For instance, it took 28 sessions before the hospital agreed to keep existing contract language saying, “Racism has no place within Seattle Children’s Hospital.”

The nurses’ contract expired on Nov. 21.

The issues the nurses are fighting for include the following:

• Better premiums for night-shift nurses as well as other hard-to-fill roles: The nurses aim to recruit and retain experienced nurses on night shift and behavioral safety trained roles. This is to protect patient and nurse safety by bringing expertise and broad skills to patient care. Currently, 50 percent of night shift nurses have less than three years’ experience.

  In healthcare, there is a mantra: See one, do one, teach one. You learn by working with more experienced nurses and watching how they handle emergencies and complex care. When the nurse showing you how to do something has only six months more experience than you do, this can put patient safety at risk.
  

• Sick leave: With depleted sick leave banks, Seattle Children’s nurses are fighting for enough sick time that they can stay home to heal when they are victims of workplace violence and to protect their fragile patients from contagious illness. The majority of nurses don’t have enough sick leave to stay home with the flu, COVID, or the common cold; 37 percent have less than 12 hours of sick leave and more than 50 percent have less than 24 hours.
  
• Workplace violence leave: Nurses should not have to skip a vacation or go without pay if their workplace violence injury limits their ability to work. The nurses’ proposal for more sick leave would allow nurses to call out when a workplace violence injury limits their ability to return to work.
  
• Sub-market pay: Seattle Children’s is among the top 10 pediatric hospitals in the country. Yet, they pay sub-market wages. Seattle Children’s is between 10% and 40% behind West Coast pediatric hospitals, with nurses entering the profession the furthest behind.
  
• Rest and meal breaks: Nurses are fighting to preserve and protect nurses’ ability to take work-free rest and meal breaks. Missed breaks are commonplace, and nurse and patient safety demand that nurses get uninterrupted time to rest, hydrate, and eat.
  
• Protest Children’s Unfair Labor Practices: WSNA has filed several unfair labor practice charges against Seattle Children’s for threatening retaliation against union supporters, refusing to allow nurses with children to observe bargaining, and unilaterally changing working conditions. These actions are potential violations of federal labor law and disrespect Seattle Children’s nurses as they work to reach a fair agreement that honors the exceptional care Seattle Children’s nurses bring to their patients and the community.

The nurses have received public support from Washington state legislators, local labor partners, and Dr. Benjamin Danielson, the former medical director of Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic. See our Oct. 21, 2025, release for more details.