Last week, we elected our local unit officers, met with the Hospital Staffing Committee, and began responding to a new practice intended to limit daily overtime and rest-between-shifts premiums.

Keep reading to meet our newly elected officers, learn how this practice is affecting staffing in the NICU, and find out what each of us can do to hold MultiCare accountable.

Welcome to Our 2026–2029 Local Unit Officers

The election results are in. Our newly elected officers are:

Co-Chair: Crystal Anderson
Co-Chair: Lauren Johnson
Secretary/Treasurer: Nicole Blackwell
Membership Officer: Randi Neff

Keeping our union strong and enforcing our contract requires tremendous time, dedication, and leadership. Please offer a heartfelt thank-you to our officers the next time you see them.

The Grievance Officer position remains open. If you are interested in serving, please contact one of our local unit officers or Nurse Representative Jared. This is a meaningful opportunity to help nurses understand their rights, enforce our contract, and build power in the workplace.

New Practice Limiting Daily Overtime and Rest-Between-Shifts Premiums

Thank you to everyone who has raised concerns about the new practice communicated by Katy requiring approval for daily overtime or situations that would result in rest-between-shifts premiums.

On its face, requiring approval for overtime does not violate our contract. MultiCare has the right to manage costs, including the approval of overtime. However, the hospital also has an obligation to follow the staffing plan, provide meal and rest breaks, and ensure break buddies are not used as the primary method of providing breaks.

Choosing not to meet the staffing plan, forcing nurses to miss breaks, or relying on break buddies to avoid overtime costs is not acceptable when nurses are willing to stay and help.

Management has claimed this new practice is intended to protect nurses’ health and well-being. However, less than 24 hours after the practice was announced, the Chief Financial Officer presented a report to the Hospital Staffing Committee that included “financial recovery levers.” Among those levers were reductions in daily overtime and rest-between-shifts premiums.

The facts are clear. This practice is about reducing costs, not protecting nurses.

If MultiCare were genuinely focused on nurses’ health and well-being, it would ensure that the NICU is safely staffed around the clock. In a unit where the staffing plan is being met less than 40% of the time, taking steps that make it even harder to secure adequate staffing is unconscionable.

What Are We Doing About It?

Since the new practice began, dozens of NICU nurses have filed Assignment Despite Objection forms after nurses were denied permission to stay over or were required to work short-staffed, miss breaks, or rely on break buddies because additional help was not approved.

These ADOs are critical. They document that management knew the unit was understaffed and chose not to use an available solution. The narratives submitted by NICU nurses have been powerful, heartfelt, and clear: management is knowingly allowing the unit to operate outside the staffing plan.

We will bring these ADOs to the September Hospital Staffing Committee meeting as evidence that management is not doing everything reasonably available to address the staffing crisis. We hope the committee will take meaningful action to improve NICU staffing. If it does not, these ADOs will support the complaints we have already filed with the Washington State Department of Health.

We are also evaluating grievances involving missed meal and rest breaks and the improper reliance on break buddies. MultiCare has an obligation to ensure nurses receive their earned breaks without requiring their coworkers to take unsafe patient assignments. Some ADOs report nurses being required to assume five or more patients so another nurse can take a break. Filing ADOs provides essential evidence to enforce our rights and hold the employer accountable.

Keep Filing ADOs

Please continue filing an ADO whenever the staffing plan is not met, you miss a meal or rest break, break buddies are used, or available help is denied. Include as much detail as possible, especially when someone volunteered to stay but was not approved.

File an ADO at www.wsna.org/ado.

MultiCare may control whether overtime is approved, but we control whether unsafe staffing remains hidden. Every ADO creates a record. Every nurse who speaks up makes it harder for management to dismiss what is happening. When we document unsafe conditions, enforce our contract, and stand together, we turn individual experiences into collective power.

Keep speaking up. Keep filing ADOs. Keep standing together. Safe staffing is worth fighting for, and none of us has to fight for it alone.

Questions? Contact Jared Richardson at jrichardson@wsna.org.