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Thanks to all our wonderful nurses, the Nurses Week celebration was a success! We celebrated with Patty’s Kitchen’s tacos and had MORE nurses join our union as they find value in the work that we are doing to support nurse’s rights! Continue reading below to see our updates!

20% Employee Discount Removal 

We know how important your health benefits are, and the removal of the 20 percent discount has understandably caused a lot of frustration and concern. For 40 years, that discount has been part of what makes working at Pullman sustainable for you and your families. When the hospital makes significant changes like this without talking to us, our union, first, it’s not just upsetting – it can be against the law governing our collective bargaining rights.

What the hospital did – changing an established term of your employment, like your health benefits, on their own – is what’s called a unilateral change. Think of it as changing the rules of our workplace agreement without negotiation. Your health insurance benefits are explicitly considered a mandatory subject of bargaining, meaning they are things the employer must negotiate with the union. An employer can't just decide to change something like this without giving us, your exclusive bargaining representative, notice and an opportunity to bargain in good faith. The fact that this discount was in place for 40 years suggests it was a past practice, a long-standing way things were done that become part of our working conditions. Unilaterally changing such an established practice on a mandatory subject is a specific type of violation.

When an employer makes a unilateral change to a mandatory subject of bargaining without fulfilling their obligation to negotiate, it's considered an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP). A ULP is a violation of your rights under the collective bargaining laws.

Our union has officially filed a ULP with PERC – the Public Employment Relations Commission. PERC is the state agency that oversees public sector labor relations and investigates these types of complaints. Filing this ULP is a crucial step in our fight to restore your benefit.

What happens now?

PERC will investigate our complaint. If they find the hospital committed a ULP by making this change on their own, they have the authority to issue a remedial order. These orders are designed to make things right and ensure the employer follows the law.

• A potential remedy in this situation is that PERC could order the hospital to restore the status quo. This means they would be ordered to bring things back to how they were before the change – including restoring that 20 percent health benefit discount. PERC can also order the hospital to bargain with our union over the issue.

We understand that navigating labor processes can feel complicated, but the ULP is a powerful tool. It’s a formal legal action through PERC to hold the hospital accountable for breaking the rules by changing your health benefits without bargaining with our union.

We are fighting hard for you to get your health benefit discount back. Thank you for your continued dedication and support as we work through this process together.

Union Membership Matters!

During our Nurses Week event Sharon Miller, a nurse from Same Day Services, became a member of our union! We had long discussions about due process, just cause, and what our union is doing regarding the 20% insurance discount that the Employer removed. Sharon shared with us that she feels it’s important for nurses to speak up for themselves and know their rights, including the right to have a union representative present when management asks to speak with you. She also shared with us her fun stories from her recent Disney cruise with her grandkids!

Why should you join WSNA now if you haven’t before? 

This is your year! Our labor contract expires at the end of September, and we need every nurse to stand up and join us in advocating for their workplace conditions. By banding together, we gain strength and leverage to address important workplace issues and advocate for our rights effectively. Membership in our union is crucial because it provides workers with a collective voice.

What do you love about working at Pullman Regional Hospital? Maybe it’s the wages or the stackable certification premiums. Maybe it’s lower nurse to patient ratios or your ability to request low census. These are all the conditions of your work that our WSNA nurses in the hospital have helped secure. These achievements are possible largely in part due to nurses being a member of our union. 

The number of nurses involved in their local unit and engaging in committees and events shows Pullman Regional that nurses know their rights. Management knows every nurse who joins our union is another nurse who won’t back down.

 Join TODAY!

Questions? Contact your WSNA Nurse Representative Alle Machorro at amachorro@wsna.org and stay tuned for our next newsletter!