Administration demanded a painstaking review of the entire contract that we have negotiated thus far that took up almost two entire precious bargaining sessions. Despite that, your negotiation team was finally able to move forward with a number of important items that we were able to reach an agreement on, including an improved grievance process that maintains or extends the timelines for our grievance process to respects the space needed for trauma-informed processing of incidents. They also agreed to our proposed language on counting a new hire's previous experience in their area of practice when it comes to placing them on the wage scale steps.

We are still in contention regarding their sub-par economic proposal, but we were recently informed that public health nurses have been added to a county-wide "priority list" for recruitment that may allow the County to offer a higher wage proposal. We have a full day negotiation session scheduled for May 6, where we intend to address this, as well as another important outstanding issue: the County has proposed removing the discrimination clause that allows nurses to fight discrimination against them via the grievance process under the contract. Your bargaining team is adamantly opposed to the idea that fighting discrimination would be taken out of the hands of the union and placed solely in the hands of a third party. We are united with Protec17 and AFSME, the other two unions representing employees of the County, to fight for the inclusion of a discrimination clause in all our contracts.

Please consider signing this letter petitioning the County by Tuesday, May 7 at 5 p.m. to include anti-discrimination protection in our contract:

In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Team
Susan Babcock, Chair
Sue Starr, Vice Chair

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your bargaining team or your WSNA nurse rep, Grace Chesterman (gchesterman@wsna.org).