Your bargaining team has completed days three and four of negotiations with the County administration. On day three, we were presented with the County's reformatted proposal that aligns the layout of the contract with the full 2021-2022 contract that was in place prior to the abbreviated 2023 interim contract. This was a huge step towards our goal of creating a comprehensive agreement that reflects the hard work done by past negotiation teams. We had an extended caucus to review member priorities.

During session four yesterday, we presented our counterproposal that integrated much of the language from the full 2021-2022 contract with the 2023 interim contract as well as the County's previous proposal. We included a new procedure to calculate step placement on the wage scale that would consider a greater breadth of nursing experience, as well as increases in vacation accrual rates across the board so nurses will accrue at a higher rate earlier in their tenure with the County. These proposals would benefit both current employees and help with the recruitment of new nursing staff. There is still much work to be done with a full day session planned for the beginning of February!

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).