Don’t forget to use your personal day!
Your WSNA Contract allows for one personal day each year. This is a “use it or lose it” benefit that should be the very first thing you ask for each and every year. Don’t miss out, use your personal day asap!

Compensatory time off and usage
Your WSNA Leadership Team recently met with hospital administration and management to discuss the issue of Comp Time usage. All parties were in agreement that Comp Time is a benefit option that is able to be used at the discretion of the RN. While not a mandate, it is recommended that you use this first to ensure these days prior to payout date:

• A nurse may use up to 40 hours at any given time with request in advance and approval.
• 7.3.8 Compensatory Time Off -the Employer retains the right to grant overtime compensatory time in lieu of monetary payment if requested by the Employee. No more than 40 hours of overtime compensatory time may be accrued at a given time and the time off must be scheduled in accordance with Department guidelines.Article 7.3.8 of your contract states that:
• **This must be requested in advance
• **You must have accrued this compensatory time before being able to utilize it (no advanced credit)

Don’t forget that the payout date compensatory time and holiday compensatory time is June 30 of each year.

New Staffing Law and ADO/Staffing Complaint forms
WSNA ADO forms can now be filled out and submitted online. They will be sent to the Staffing Committee Chair, Cindy Sayre and WSNA. It is also important for you to inform your CN and manager every time you submit one as well.

Washington state lawmakers have passed new legislation to protect RNs and the patients they serve. The highlights of this new legislation are below. HB 1714 increases transparency of nurse staffing plans in hospitals around the state by amending the current staffing law to:

• Require hospitals to accept the staffing committee’s staffing plan or to prepare an alternative annual staffing plan that will be adopted by the hospital.
• Require hospitals to submit the adopted staffing plan, and subsequent changes to the staffing plan, to the Washington State Department of Health beginning January 1, 2019.
• Require the hospital to implement the staffing plan and assign nursing personnel to each patient care unit in accordance with the plan beginning January 1, 2019.
• Allow a nurse to report to, and file a complaint with, the staffing committee any time the nurse personnel assignment is not in accordance with the adopted staffing plan.
• Allow nurses who may disagree with the shift-to-shift adjustments in staffing levels to submit a complaint to the staffing committee.
• Require staffing committees to develop a process to examine and respond to submitted complaints and to determine if a complaint is resolved or dismissed based on unsubstantiated data.
• Require the Washington State Department of Health to investigate complaints with documented evidence for failure to:
• Form or establish a staffing committee.
• Conduct a semi-annual review of a nurse staffing plan.
• Submit a nurse staffing plan on an annual basis and any updates.
• Follow the nursing staff personnel assignments as adopted by the hospital based on the complaints compiled by the staffing committee that include aggregate data that show a continuing pattern of unresolved violations for a minimum 60-day continuous period.
• Exceptions include unforeseeable emergent circumstances and documented reasonable efforts by hospital to obtain staffing to meet required assignments.
• Require hospitals to submit a corrective action plan within 45 days if the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) finds a violation – and, if the hospital fails to submit a corrective action plan or doesn’t follow its corrective action plan, DOH may impose a civil penalty of $100 per day until the hospital submits a corrective action plan, begins to follow a corrective action plan, or takes other action agreed to by DOH.
• Require the Washington State Department of Health to maintain public inspection records of any civil penalties, administrative actions, or license suspensions or revocations imposed on hospitals.
• Require the Washington State Department of Health to submit a report to the legislature by December 31, 2020, on the number of complaints submitted, investigated, associated costs to DOH, and any recommended changes to statute.
• Require a stakeholder group including WSNA to review the report before it is submitted to the legislature.
• This act expires on June 1, 2023.

For questions please contact WSNA Nurse Representative Ed Zercher at ezercher@wsna.org.

Your WSNA Local Unit Leaders at UWMC are:

Harry James, OR, hejames_99@yahoo.com

Chris Jakubowski, Cardiology - Heart Cath, chrisjakubowski@comcast.net

Teresa Wren, Perinatal Daily, twren5@hotmail.com

Anita Stull, Psychiatry, anitastull@comcast.net

Charles James, Post Anesthesia Care, chuckj@msn.com