Wins on Layoffs and Low Census — Still Fighting for Safety and Fair Pay

Your WSNA Negotiations Team met with the hospital yesterday for Bargaining Session #18. While we made some progress, we’re still facing major challenges in key areas that affect safety, stability, and fairness.

✅ Wins and Movement:

• Seniority/Layoffs (Article 6): The Union rebuffed the hospital’s attempt to change how layoffs are done — a big win for job security.
• Low Census: The hospital agreed to a cap of 72 mandatory low census hours per quarter. This is a significant move toward protecting nurses against excessive low census hours.
• Floating: The hospital dropped its proposal to float ICU nurses to the ED — a direct result of your advocacy and unity.

⚠️ Ongoing Challenges:

• Workplace Violence Protections: We continue to push for real safeguards, including dedicated security staffing in the PBMU and injury leave (up to 3 days) following a workplace violence incident. The hospital has not yet agreed to meaningful commitments in this area.
• Meal and Rest Breaks: The hospital is still proposing language that would automatically opt all nurses out of additional meal periods and require any dispute over missed breaks to go through binding arbitration — limiting your rights and silencing your voice.
• Floating Premiums: They continue to resist expanding Multi-Campus Floating Premiums to any time a nurse is floated, a standard benefit in many contracts across Washington.

💬 Your Union’s Actions:

• We passed proposals on Article 10 (Annual Leave), Article 12 (Medical and Insurance Benefits), continuing to reject the Hospital’s attempt to take away employer-paid premiums, and Article 13 (Leaves of Absence), returning to current language that protects Birth of a Child, Health Leave, and Welcoming Leave.
• We continue to demand maintenance of benefits on certain leaves, reinforced by a moving letter shared by one of our nurses that underscored the importance of protecting caregivers when they need time away.
• We passed proposals on Article 4 (Definitions), Floating, and premiums related to floating, continuing to fight for more protections around when nurses are floated outside of their clinical grouping or to a different campus.

💰 Economics:

The hospital passed its first economic counter since September 25 — adding only dimes and quarters to the first year of the wage scale and continuing to insist on long periods of ghost steps for more senior nurses.

They also continue to offer 10% less to nurses in Eastern Washington. Despite our wide gap, they told us they don’t want to add more money until we make concessions elsewhere — a stance that feels counterproductive and coercive.

Seattle Children’s has made it crystal clear that they didn’t say they couldn’t afford our economic proposal, they said it was unreasonable. According to Financial Report #1 – they absolutely CAN afford a fair nursing contract.

We’re staying united and clear: nurses deserve safety, respect, and fair pay. 

As always, we appreciate ALL the Observers that made time to come and support the bargaining team! Our UNITY is essential to getting a fair contract.  💪

Let’s talk about that AMAZING Picket!! 💙

Follow the link for more photos of the picket: https://photos.wsna.org/Seattle-Childrens-Hospital-Informational-Picket-2025.

We had over 1300 people turn out for our picket and made a POWERFUL statement, but we are not done yet. We are working on next steps in the background including engaging our elected leadership, union allies, and community allies, but lets be clear, the core of our strength comes directly from YOU. As we are setting up the groundwork for escalation that everyone can get in on, the biggest impact you can make is by coming to observe.

Those misleading communications that management put out are not going to work if nurses come to witness the truth of what is happening at bargaining with their own eyes. We saw them flinch when we packed the room with observers before, and we can’t let up now.

Bring lunch, bring your badge, wear your WSNA blue, and come stand with us as we fight for a better future for ourselves and our patients.

Upcoming Bargaining Dates: 

10/16, 10/17, 10/29, 10/30 and 11/3
1916 Boren, 11^th floor

We start at 9 am but you can come when you are able. Here are some guidelines:

If you have further questions about observing after reading the guidelines, please reach out to our organizer Crystal Doll at cdoll@wsna.org.

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