Come talk with our union over tacos! 

Our local union officers will be in the library area from 1:30-4p on Monday, May 19 with tacos for our nurses. We will also be in Conference room C from 5:30-8p with more tacos for night shift workers. We want to say thank you for all your hard work for our profession. Nurses can grab tacos, beverages, and file their bargaining survey if they haven’t yet. Happy Nurses Week!

Bargaining Survey and Bargaining Committee

If you haven’t filed your bargaining survey- NOW is the time to do so. Our survey will close on June 5 and we need every nurse to file one, so we know what matters to you. Follow this link and file yours today.

Interested in being on the bargaining team? 

Nominate yourself or a colleague to be on our contract bargaining team! We strive to have a nurse from every department, so we have ample representation. The officer group will decide from the forms submitted who will participate. Nominate today!

Has the new CNO texted you lately?

Our union was notified recently about direct text messages from the CNO to the nurse’s personal cell phone and on their day off. We feel our nurses should have healthy boundaries with work and life. If something work related needs to be discussed, we encourage you to use your work platforms such as your Pullman email. This behavior and channel of communication feels inappropriate to us and we have communicated that to the CNO and HR.

If any member of management or leadership is asking to meet with you one on one, you should always ask for your union representative. 

What is Just Cause?

Even the best nurses can make mistakes, which is why most union contracts include language protecting workers from discipline without just cause. That means your employer can’t discipline you for any reason; under your union contract, Pullman will need to prove they’ve met seven specific standards to demonstrate they have just cause for disciplining a nurse in our bargaining unit. Unless they prove they meet all seven standards, they would not have just cause for discipline and could not penalize a nurse under your contract.
 
 Those seven standards are:

• Management must give employees fair notice of the rule they’re accused of violating. Management must show that you knew about a rule before they can discipline you for violating it. They might do this through mandatory trainings, classes during orientation, or by distributing a rule via email to all employees.
• The rule must be reasonable. Management doesn’t have just cause for discipline if they’re enforcing an unreasonable rule, even if you knew the rule exists. If your manager is trying to enforce a rule that doesn’t make sense for your unit, it might not be a reasonable rule.
• Management must have done a thorough investigation before imposing discipline. If management did only a partial investigation before disciplining you or if crucial evidence of a violation only turned up after you were disciplined, they did not complete a thorough investigation before disciplining you.
• Management’s investigation must have been fair and objective. If your manager only talked to other managers or didn’t talk to everyone who witnessed the alleged violation, they have not completed a fair and objective investigation.
• Management must have proof the violation actually occurred. If management disciplines you because they have a hunch you’ve violated a rule but no proof, they have not met the standard for just cause.
• Management must have enforced the rule evenhandedly. If management has never enforced this rule before or imposed less serious penalties in the past, they have not met the standard for just cause. Likewise, if management is harder on some employees than others when it enforces this rule, it’s not applying the rule evenhandedly and does not have just cause.
• The penalty must be proportionate to the violation. Management must take things like the seriousness of the rule they’re alleging you’ve violated and your length of service into account when it decides to impose discipline. If you’ve received a serious penalty for a minor violation or for your first offense after a long history as an employee in good standing, your employer may not have just cause for discipline.

Just cause protections are one of the biggest benefits of union representation, and by knowing how it works we can make best use of our rights under our contract.

Join the Hospital Staffing Committee! 

We are accepting nominations for the hospital staffing committee. Members of this pivotal committee are responsible for evaluating staffing complaints and helping build the annual staffing plans. Time on this committee is paid and members meeting monthly. Nominations will run through May 30, 2025- nominate yourself or a colleague TODAY!

PTO Accrual Issue

While investigating PTO accrual issues, WSNA uncovered that since transitioning to workday (in 2022) there have been errors in how vacation accruals are calculated. The Employer provided our union with an email stating that it would be corrected. Nurses should see additional adjustments on their paycheck for May 9, 2025.

Questions? Reach out to Alle Machorro WSNA Nurse representative, amachorro@wsna.org if you have any questions!