Your WSNA negotiating team had a short virtual bargaining session today from 9 am to roughly 10:30 am. During this session, we discussed management's counterproposals to some of our non-economic items, and we presented the employer with a strong economic proposal highlighting our top priorities: wages, healthcare, and retirement.

Our Economic Priorities

We know Ocean Beach is lagging behind other public hospitals in our area, and our proposals are designed to fix that, retain staff, and recognize your hard work. We sought out improvements in base wages, premium pay, and eliminating two separate wage scales emphasizing the importance that all nurses deserve equal pay in one pay scale.

We also know that Health Care, Retirement, and Time off are also very important to all of you and presented proposals that would keep Ocean Beach competitive in all these area and help recruit, retain, and reward nurses with many years of service to this community.

Non-Economic Counter-Proposals

We also continued our dialogue on crucial non-economic items to include union orientation and accurate information for the union to stay in touch with all of us. We also had a good discussion on workplace safety. We appreciated our CNO Brenda’s input in topics today, that was helpful having her perspectives.

Next Steps Our next bargaining sessions are scheduled for March 19, 20, 26, and 27. We made it clear to management today that we are prepared to do whatever it takes to reach a fair deal by the 27th, prior to our contract's expiration. This doesn’t mean we will take just any deal to be done, but we sincerely want to get you the contract you deserve in a timely manner.

We STILL want to hear from you.

We are still waiting to pass some proposals to the employer, including economics, at our next session. We want all nurses to fill out the survey, so we know we are truly representing all Ocean Beach WSNA nurses.

Take the survey now

Stay tuned for more updates, and please reach out to the bargaining team if you have any questions!

In solidarity,
Brenda Slagle – Local Unit Chair
Marcey Frame - Local Unit Secretary/Treasurer
Brad Bell – Bargaining Team Member

Questions? Contact your WSNA Nurse Representative, Bret Percival, at 206-471-0876 or bpercival@wsna.org.