MultiCare recently sent out an email about upcoming changes to meal period waivers under a new law. We want to make sure you have the full story. WSNA is actively bargaining with MultiCare to ensure any new meal waiver is fair, transparent, and respects your rights as nurses.

How Do Meal Periods and Rest Breaks Work?

Under Washington state law, every hourly employee is entitled to:

• A 30-minute unpaid, uninterrupted meal period for every 5 hours worked. (The meal period must be paid if you are subject to being recalled from break or required to remain on the premises!)
• A 10-minute uninterrupted rest break for every 4 hours worked. (Our WSNA contract improves on this by extending rest breaks to 15 minutes.)

Example:
 A nurse working a 12-hour shift is entitled to:

• Two 30-minute unpaid meal periods.
  • The first must occur between the 2nd and 5th hour worked.
  • The second must be given within 5 hours of the first meal period ending.
• Three 15-minute rest breaks.

If a meal period is missed or delayed beyond the legal timeframe, the employer must pay the missed 30 minutes plus an additional 30 minutes as a penalty. The additional 30 minutes counts as “time worked,” which may trigger overtime pay, meaning 1.25 hours of additional pay per missed meal period.

Meal and rest breaks can only be combined with mutual agreement between you and your employer, and until January 1, 2026, only one meal period and one rest break may be combined.

Employees may voluntarily waive their second (or third, or fourth) meal period. MultiCare requires that anyone who waives an additional meal period must also waive the timing requirement for their first meal period. This waiver can be revoked by the employee at any time.

What’s Changing with the Law?

During the 2025 legislative session, SHB 1879 was passed and signed into law. You can read it using the link below.

The intent of this law is to give healthcare workers more flexibility around meal and rest breaks. With mutual agreement, employees and employers may now combine meal periods and rest breaks in any way that works best for them.

Importantly, for unionized employees, the union and employer must agree to any waiver form before it can be used. This gives nurses a real voice in shaping the waiver, something we have not had before.

It is also critical to remember that all waivers must still be mutually agreed upon between the nurse and the employer.

What We’re Fighting For

MultiCare’s policy ties together two separate decisions: waiving an additional meal period and waiving the timing requirement for the first meal period. The law does not require this, and WSNA believes this practice limits nurses’ flexibility and choice.

Under SHB 1879, a nurse could waive one without being forced to waive the other. If the timing waiver is included, management could delay a meal until the second-to-last hour of the shift. For a 12-hour nurse starting at 0700, that could mean not eating until 1700. That is not acceptable.

Here is what the law says:

“An employer and employee may also agree to waive otherwise applicable timing requirements for meal and rest periods...”

We are asking MultiCare to follow the law as written, allowing nurses to decide whether to waive additional meal periods and whether to waive timing requirements separately.

MultiCare’s insistence on coupling the two allows them to avoid paying penalties for missed meals and to schedule fewer staff during peak hours. Nurses deserve better.

Where Negotiations Stand

WSNA has been bargaining with MultiCare for several months on a new meal period waiver. Officer teams from Tacoma General, Good Samaritan, and Mary Bridge NICU have been fully involved in these discussions.

MultiCare continues to refuse to decouple the waivers. Their recent email even threatened to revoke existing waivers if a new agreement is not reached by January 1. WSNA views that as a unilateral change in working conditions, and we will take appropriate action if necessary.

We remain committed to bargaining in good faith and confident we can reach a waiver agreement that protects nurses and supports safe patient care.

If you have questions, please reach out to your local unit officers or your WSNA Nurse Representative.

In Solidarity,
 The WSNA Teams at Tacoma General Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, and Mary Bridge NICU