It was June 1944, the country was at war, and Marge Batey was graduating from St. Patrick’s Academy in Sidney, Nebraska. The boys from her high school class were heading into the military, off to the battlefields of World War II. Batey was heading to the Sacred Heart School of Nursing in Spokane.
By Ruth Schubert, APR, Director of Marketing and Communications
Press release
In a major victory for Kadlec nurses, the Washington State Nurses Association and Providence Kadlec Regional Medical Center reached a tentative contract agreement last night.
A consummate nurse and union leader who believed that nurses must represent nurses, Barbara served on the staff of the Washington State Nurses Association for 20 years.
Press release
SEATTLE—In a press conference held today outside Swedish Medical Center First Hill Campus, nurses and other healthcare workers representing caregivers from three unions announced their readiness to strike if parent company Providence does not come back to the bargaining table with fair contract proposals.
Please take a good hard look at what your nurses are doing — listen to them and start to run a kinder and more humane benefits program.
Our patients deserve us at our best. If Providence wishes to continue delivering its promise of “quality, compassionate health care for everyone,” they should want us at our best, too.
We deserve to be appreciated. We deserve to be able to take a “mental health day”, or to stay home with our sick kids if they need us. We deserve to feel safe when we go to work. We deserve safe staffing, to be able to provide the very best care possible for our patients. We deserve these things, but most importantly, our patients deserve us at our very best, on what could be one of the worst days of their life.
We don’t enter each negotiation with a list of demands, but rather the gut-wrenching question of “what will they take from us this time?” That reality is the saddest of all.
Is there someone who has changed your professional life and the lives of others? Now is your opportunity to nominate a person you admire for inclusion in the Washington State Nurses Hall of Fame for 2020!
A friendly reminder from the WSNA-PAC Board that today, Tuesday, November 5, is Election Day – no postage is required to mail your ballot!
Press release
RICHLAND, Wash – After two days of voting, Kadlec members of the Washington State Nurses Association voted by an overwhelming majority to authorize a strike.
Press release
SPOKANE, Wash – After two days of voting, Sacred Heart members of the Washington State Nurses Association voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.
Providence Sacred Heart and Providence Kadlec consider their options after more than a year of negotiations.
Sadly, I believe the moral decline and proposed unethical treatment of employees by Providence violates my religious convictions, and I can no longer remain neutral. While I still do not agree with some of the tactics and philosophies of unions on a global scale, I am now ready to be an active member with a voting voice through WSNA.
After almost 20 years of service to Kadlec, Providence now wants to “reward” me by decreasing my PTO accrual hours, cutting nearly two weeks per year... It makes me sad to think that all you are looking at is the bottom line, and not how you are affecting my life and how you don’t think I am worthy of the PTO that I am earning after giving Kadlec 20 years of service.
"Our goal is not a strike - our goal is a fair and just contract." We had a recent union meeting, and that phrase was said a few times, and for me it really hit home.With strike assessment and preparation now in full swing at Kadlec, the threat becomes more and more real.Make no mistake: I will strike if I have to, without hesitation. But that is a scary thought.
Attend an event in our Fall Leadership Series. Learn what you can do as a nurse to ensure successful implementation of new laws aimed at preventing workplace violence and protecting overtime and breaks for healthcare professionals.
WSNA would like to congratulate five Washington state nurses on being named 2019 fellows by AAN, and one on being named a NCSBN fellow.
A new report details how union members in Washington state earn significantly higher wages and are more likely to get health care and retirement benefits than their non-union counterparts.
WSNA members are invited to “Nightingale: A Musical Regarding the Life & Passionate Nature of Miss Florence Nightingale,” playing at various Washington venues in 2020.
A friendly reminder from the WSNA-PAC Board that Washington state’s Primary Election is Tuesday, August 6 – no postage is required to mail your ballot! The WSNA-PAC has endorsed candidates in two special election legislative races.
WSNA won the Mother Jones Organizational Award on July 26 at the annual Washington State Labor Council convention for our work on rest breaks legislation. Co-recipients were SEIU Healthcare 1199NW and UFCW21.
WSNA members from Sacred Heart and Kadlec joined hundreds of outraged nurses, health care workers, state labor leaders, public officials and union activists from across Washington on July 26 to hold a “Rally for Patients Before Profits” at Providence corporate headquarters.
Bargaining team member Matthew McGuire: "This TA gives us a strong contract that I have no reservations recommending."
