On Friday, we reached a tentative agreement (TA) for a new contract. This came after nine months of intense bargaining and advocating for a fair contract for our nurses. Your bargaining team supports a ‘YES’ vote. We recommend you vote ‘YES’ because your overwhelming solidarity in authorizing a strike vote helped us achieve notable gains since November 21 on your top priority issues: wage scale, sick leave, workplace violence, night shift differential, and breaks protections. This TA also greatly improves language to make a safer workplace, with more time off, and more predictable schedules, among many other areas.  Finally, thanks to your unity and loud voices, we fought off the employer’s anti-union and anti-nurse takeaways.

A LONG list of Wins

1. Market-based wage increases
   • Step 1 will increase more than 20% by March of 2028
   • The whole wage scale will increase an average of 15%, and wage rates where we lose most nurses (Steps 1-11) will increase an average of 17.6% by March of 2028
   • Your Individual wages will rise even higher, as you move up the scale over the life of the contract.       Example: Step 1 of the scale goes up by $9.75 per hour, but wages for a nurse starting at Step 1 will go up $14.70 per hour over three years
   • 96% of nurses will see between $4.00 and $8.25 per hour raises on ratification with full retro pay to 9/1
   • This scale narrows the wage gap between Seattle Children’s and other West Coast pediatric hospitals. (We know we have more work to do on this in future contracts!)
2. Accelerated scale with no ghost steps means nurses earn more money faster
   • Current scale is 37 steps - this means a nurse must work at SCH for 36 years to earn top step
   • The TA accelerates the wage scale to 31 steps, meaning RNs reach top step SIX YEARS FASTER
   • The current CBA has no increase from year to year at 10 different steps (ghost steps)
   • The TA eliminates ghost steps, meaning ALL RNs see a wage increase every year
   • Local hospitals are trending to accelerated wage scales – this keeps us in pace
3. Retro pay secured 
   • The TA guarantees nurses will get full retro pay to 9/1 at the new rates, including any step increases since 9/1
   • Includes overtime and double time retro pay, but not premiums or differentials
   • Nurses will receive their retro pay within two full pay periods following ratification, in the same manner that they receive wages (i.e., direct deposit), less taxes and withholdings.
   • A nurse must be employed by the Employer as of the date of payment to receive this payment.
4. Parity for our nurses
   • Eastern Washington nurse pay parity (eliminates current 10% below scale).
   • Relief charge parity (hourly premium to $3.50 – same as charge).
   • Per diem adjustment for years of RN licensure/SCH employment upon returning to FTE (like FT and PT nurses got last contract cycle).
5. Eight Increased Premiums

6. Sick Leave Improvements

• 8% Increase in sick leave to .05 per hour paid (8 hours a year for 1.0 FTE)
  • One-time deposit of sick leave into RN sick leave banks for ALL FULL-TIME and PART-TIME RNs
    • 12 hours for RNs with a total of .6 FTE or above
    • 8 hours for RNs with a total of .59 FTE or below
  • New protected leaves and PFMLA supplementation improvements that will reduce strain on nurses’ sick leave banks (see below).

7. Four New Protected Leaves

• On-the-job-Injury Leave – Paid leave to the end of the shift while receiving treatment or if unable to return to work due to workplace safety and health incident.
• Workplace Violence Leave – Up to 3 days of paid time off with no attendance occurrence for workplace violence injuries with documented inability to return to work.
• Post-shift Fatigue Leave – Access to leave banks or unpaid leave without attendance occurrence if too fatigued due to 16+ hours or working call between consecutive shifts.
• Death of a Patient Leave – Access to leave banks or unpaid leave for remainder of shift without attendance occurrence if assigned patient dies while on duty.

8. WA PFML Supplementation Flexibility to Extend Medical Coverage

At the start of their WA PFML, nurses may elect to supplement their leave with previously accrued sick leave and accrued annual leave. Upon exhausting their WA PFML, nurses who did not elect to supplement may elect to use their previously accrued sick leave and accrued annual leave during the remainder of their birth of a child, health, and welcoming leave. This may extend health coverage beyond that required by law.

9. Break Relief Protections

• No mandatory arbitration or class action waiver
• Preserves nurses’ individual choice whether to waive breaks or not on a waiver form bargained with WSNA
• Revised breaks language to track updates in rest/meal break laws
• New break coverage protections:
  • “The staffing of patient care units will be based on census, acuity, and the established staffing plans and in a manner designed to enable all nurses to be relieved from work for the meal and rest periods called for by this [CBA].”
  • “The Employer shall ensure that there is sufficient break coverage to cover all bargaining unit nurses for all rest breaks and meal periods as required by law.”
  • Plan for break coverage at the start of each shift
• Non-retaliation language for taking and reporting missed breaks
• Staffing committee oversight into missed break trends

10. Workplace Violence Protections – NEW

• Codifies 2 dedicated security personnel on the PBMU
• Much more robust language that requires SCH to provide a safe environment free from identifiable, preventable, recognized workplace hazards
• Acknowledges no RN should have to endure any act of workplace violence (WPV) or implied threats of WPV
• Prevention plan, security access protocols, new RN and ongoing training requirements, notices
• Response: system for responding to and investigating WPV incidents, WPV response team, prompt investigation of incidents, ability for RN to escalate if investigation was inadequate, debriefing, records maintenance
• Commitment to maintain WPV committee with at least half employees, 4 of which are RNs; paid time on committee
• Non-retaliation language

11. NEW Technology Protections

• Tech should support provision of care while preserving RN’s exercise of clinical judgment
• Tech will be used to complement not diminish RN skills, judgment, decision-making
• Tech will not identify itself as a nurse; no RN credentialing used to attest to services
• SCH must train RNs on tech, and that time is paid
• No discipline for raising concerns about failing tech
• SCH must involve Nursing Clinical Quality Council for new tech; Conference Committee may provide input

12. Racial Justice and DEI

• Preserved CBA language that racism has no place at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
• Expanded preamble language consistent with ANA code of ethics, including a commitment to oppose unequal treatment based on ANY protected classification.
• Expanded commitment to NOT discriminate against any employee on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin (ancestry), disability, age, genetic information, marital status, citizenship, pregnancy or maternity, protected veteran status or any other status protected by applicable national, federal, state or local law.
• No mandatory arbitration and class action waiver for ANY claims, including when SCH discriminates, harasses, or creates a hostile work environment for RNs

13. Important Schedule Protections

• All schedules other than all 8s require RN’s agreement. This includes consent to the number of shifts of a specified length within a specified FTE.
  • Changes to an RN’s schedule require mutual consent.
  • Clarified/streamlined language for combination and ambulatory schedules that preserves existing overtime and double time protections.
  • Innovative schedules
    • UBSC involvement in creation of innovative work schedules.
    • Increase to 42 days’ notice from 28 when reverting to prior schedule.
• Eliminates requirement that overtime/double-time is contingent on a nurse working the remainder of their shifts that pay period.

We Successfully Fought Off Anti-Union and Anti-Nurse Proposals and Takeaways

• Preserved employer-paid medical
• Protected nurses’ right to strike after contract expiration
• Rejected attempt by SCH to make it easier to lay off nurses
• Rejected proposal for mandatory arbitration and class waiver
• Preserved union security and dues checkoff
• Rejected loophole language to undermine progressive discipline
• Preserved nurses’ ability to remove discipline from file after 2 years
• And many more!

What’s Next? Organizing and Vote Details 

Full Ratification Redline is coming ASAP!

Your team is working hard to finalize the final ratification redline to ensure it is accurate and complete. We will get it into your hands as soon as we have it done!  Rest assured, you will have time to review it before you vote.  The reason we are moving the weekly bargaining update to Wednesday is in the hope that the redline ratification document will be available for you to review before we hold the education sessions about the TA.

Please note that this email is a summary only.  There are more contract improvements than we have included here. Please refer to the ratification redline document to see the full set of agreed changes from current contract language. WSNA will also be putting out additional information in the coming days.

Ask Questions about the TA:

People have a ton of questions about the tentative agreement that was reached early Friday morning. So that we can get to as many questions as possible before the vote and address them in our upcoming TA educational sessions, please submit in advance here (we will also be taking questions live).

TA Questions – Fill out form

Upcoming TA Education Sessions (These are in place of Tuesday’s Weekly Bargaining Update):

Wednesday 5-6 PM (Microsoft Teams)

Wednesday 8-9 PM (Microsoft Teams)

Thursday 5:30-6:30 PM IN PERSON SCH Auditorium

Thursday 7:45-8:45 PM IN PERSON SCH Auditorium

Vote Information:

Your link to vote will go out to your personal email through Election Buddy.

We expect voting will start Thursday (1/29/26) at 9 PM and close Saturday (1/31/26) at 9 PM.

YOU ARE WSNA! 

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 and Anne Marie Fountain

WSNA Nurse Rep Linda Burbank at lburbank@wsna.org