First thing, we confirmed that we are in agreement to extend the double time LOU! The first part of the day, we finished modifying and adding LOUs and MOUs into the contract, including the Case Manager LOU and the Incentive Bonus MOU. For nurses who choose to participate in the incentive bonus MOU, we agreed that nurses from specialty units can be used only as nurse extenders, while nurses from in-patient units will select one unit they agree to float to take patient assignments. This ensures that nurses are not taking care of patients outside of their scope, and are not assigned to do CNA work while floating.

We spent the rest of the day discussing one of your most important issues, vacations. We reviewed the vacation language from other hospitals in Washington that you all sent us and discussed what features might work well here. We had a long discussion about creating a better system for requesting vacations that involves more transparency. We began the process of crafting a better system that ensures that all nurses are able to have at least some of their preferred vacation requests granted. Both sides believe it is important to strike an equitable balance between seniority and newer nurses to ensure all nurses can get a vacation. We came close to wrapping this discussion up. We will be bringing a proposal to management on Tuesday based on today. We will have more details after Tuesday, as we have more work to do on the resource scarcity part to this equation. We hope to have a tentative agreement on vacations after our next session on May 3.

Please stay tuned for more information, and please wear your "I support my negotiation team" buttons next Tuesday May 3!

Don’t forget to thank your negotiating team: Sara Bergenholtz, Nicholas Jackson, Amy Yarbrough, Blaine Wuertz, Paul Molenaar, Paul Stamilio, Lorna Sebastian, and Karla Bourgeois.

Questions? Contact WSNA Nurse Representative Carmen Garrison at cgarrison@wsna.org.