Strikes Fuel Biggest Pay Raises in Labor Contracts Since 1990

Nurses at Astria Toppenish Hospital, a rural hospital in Washington state, lost scores of nurses to better paying jobs during the lead up to contract negotiations, said Julia Barcott, a nurse and Washington State Nurses Association co-chair at the hospital.

Some nurses left the profession to make more money driving trucks, she said.

“We were ready to negotiate and then a little bird in management told us that they’d be willing to match salaries at one of the hospitals where we’d been losing people,” Barcott said. “So we said we’d like to reschedule bargaining, we revamped our proposal, and came in with an even higher wage scale.”