On Thursday August 28, Seattle Children’s finally made its opening economic proposal.  Ignoring the relevant market (West Coast children’s hospitals) and citing vague economic headwinds, SCH offered nurses a meager raise, rejected WSNA’s proposals on sick leave accruals, night and evening differentials, and break relief nurses, and proposed takeaways in critical areas like healthcare premiums. Take a seat and take a breath. Here we go.

SCH’s proposal includes the following takeaways:

• Eliminates employer-paid health care premiums (Art. 12.1) – We estimate this would cost each nurse roughly $45 every paycheck for Regence Classic.
• Restricts nurses’ access to meal breaks (Art. 7.6) - SCH’s proposal would eliminate a second meal break and the timing requirements for the first meal break for all nurses (unless the nurse affirmatively opts into it). This is true even though SCH acknowledges the break buddy system means nurses will carry a patient load exceeding that of a single patient assignment.
• Imposes onerous recordkeeping for breaks (Art. 7.6) – In addition to clocking out for meal breaks, the Hospital proposes language that requires, for every missed or interrupted meal or rest break, nurses to give their supervisor a written explanation as to why the meal or rest period was missed within 24 hours. What nurse who didn’t have time to take their break has time to write a note explaining why??
• Removes access to time off for birth of a child, health, and welcoming leave (Art. 13) – SCH proposes these leaves all run concurrently and ties them to a rolling twelve-month calendar. Too bad if you have a child and break a leg in the same year.
• Reduces the rate of pay for certain weekend pay, jury duty, report pay, payment of annual leave (multiple articles)
• Excludes you from retirement enhancements (Art. 12.4) – Excludes our nurses from any enhancements to the current retirement plan that the rest of the hospital gets.
• Reduces bereavement leave access (Art. 13.13) - the hospital rejected our proposal that you can go home if you experience the death of a patient on shift. Also, in the tragic case of your spouse or child dying, SCH proposes to reduce bereavement leave to 24 hours from 80 (but you'd be able to get an extra 16 hours if your supervisor approves it).
• No strikes or pickets after contract expiration (Art. 20) - Our contract wouldn't expire until the next contract is agreed upon or we are at a legal impasse, severely restricting our ability to picket or strike.
• No pay parity for nurses working in Eastern, WA (MOU) – SCH rejected our proposal for pay parity for the nurses working in Eastern, WA.  

Their proposal also screams NO to many of WSNA’s economic and health and safety asks:

• Offers percentage-based wage increases off our current pay scale of 3% in year one, a 2.5%, in year two, and a 2.5% in year three. This gets nurses nowhere near the relevant market, and is worth less due to the loss of employer-paid healthcare premiums and other takeaways
• rejects any increase in sick leave accruals
• rejects any increase in evening and weekend differential
• rejects break relief nurses
• rejects annual leave and other improvements for per diem nurses
• throws a few cents at the night shift differential, ECMO, and relief charge nurse pay but otherwise rejects WSNA’s proposals to fairly pay nurses working nights, evenings and weekends; on call; multi-campus floating; charge; clinical care transport; advanced care; PBMU, ECMO, ACE, RISK; and language certifications

Negotiating is a process, and this is just SCH’s opening position (not its final stance). But with our commitment to transparency, we want you to know the takeaways your employer is proposing.  Please know that we remain committed to representing our bargaining unit, advocating for comparable wages for comparable work, and prioritizing proposals that aim to retain and recruit nurses, ensuring all our patients have access to the best nursing care 24/7.

Yesterday, our amazing team got to work and focused on counterproposals to keep the negotiations moving. We even reached our first tentative agreement on the grievance process in Article 16, as well as Article 15 (which will remain unchanged from the current contract language). We worked until sunset to pass a counterproposal on Article 5, which includes our new Technology language that we are moving closer to agreement on. Article 5 also addresses FTE changes, and we appreciated the productive conversation across the table with leaders about the FTE reduction process and how to best utilize the UBSCs in that work.

Seattle Children’s anchored their wage proposal on “economic uncertainty” and a long-term commitment to serving patients—while ignoring the core of our proposal: the pay inequities nurses face and the systemic devaluing of caregiving work. They want us to believe that fixing pay inequities for nurses will come at the expense of our patients. It’s the same disrespectful message caregivers have been told forever: if we value you fairly, patients will suffer. We reject that false narrative. Nurses and patients deserve better.

State Representative Liz Berry Extends a Letter of Support for the Seattle Children’s Nurses

We have support in our community and in our state government. Our state legislative representative and nurse ally, Rep. Liz Berry, has highlighted the state’s reliance on skilled and experienced nurses caring for our region's sick children. She is the chair of Washington State's House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee, and she addressed a timely letter to SCH leadership, offering her support for our nurses and our priorities in negotiations.

We have another full day of bargaining today. Stay engaged and let’s continue this fight for a STRONG and FAIR Contract! 

A huge ‘Thank You’ to the CBDC for providing a delicious lunch for the bargaining team!

Do not hesitate to contact any of the officers if you have questions. All of our contacts are on our WSNA website. https://www.wsna.org/union/seattle-childrens-hospital. Also, utilizing our Instagram @sch_wsna offers quick updates and opportunities for DMs.

In solidarity,

Your Bargaining Team
Annika Hoogestraat, Kara Yates, Lindsey Kirsch, Sam Forte, Katie Podobnik, Therese Hill, Kelsey Gellner, AJ Nagal, Emma Gordon, Sarah Munro, Cody Ian, Lauren Lustyk, Regan Halom, Jon McAferty, Anna Marie Fountain and Bree Casas

WSNA Nurse Rep Linda Burbank at lburbank@wsna.org