STAFFING and WAGES

Did you know that each month, some of your WSNA officers and your unit peers attend staffing committee meetings? The staffing committee is where the hospital and staff nurses work together to develop staffing plans that are presented to the CEO for approval, then registered with the State and implemented. The staffing committee also reviews the many ADOs you have all submitted. Those ADOs are invaluable for tracking issues and for management to hear about where deficiencies are. While sometimes it may seem onerous to fill them out or that they fall on deaf ears, they are vital for bringing about change. Please continue to fill them out each and every time you are faced with insufficient staffing related to ratios, rest breaks, etc. Your manager should be looping back with you to give you information about the situation once it has been presented in staffing committee.

Staffing committee meets the second Monday of each month from 11:00 am – 2 pm. Does your unit have a representative on the staffing committee? If not and you would like to join, please contact one of your officers or your WSNA rep. This is paid time and your manager must allow you the time to attend.

Staffing Grievance – Several months ago, the hospital unilaterally implemented a change in the staffing grids without going through the staffing committee and working through that “joint process” as required by your contract and law. WSNA promptly filed a grievance after attempting to work with VM to address our concerns. We are continuing to work through that grievance but to date, we have not received an acceptable response from the hospital. We are disappointed that this was necessary and concerned that when we are receiving ADOs on a daily basis from many nurses, the hospital elected to unilaterally cut PCT resources.

WAGES – We have been hearing from many of you who are watching the greater Seattle/Tacoma area hospitals experience significant and appropriate wage growth. The result is that VM has fallen significantly behind the area market. Your WSNA officers have been urging administration to take action for months to ensure it has the ability to recruit and retain an excellent RN staff. While we have heard there have been talks with Common Spirit, nothing has materialized. WSNA has formally requested to reopen wages only and hope the hospital will be willing to bargain now rather than waiting almost a year for a new contract to adjust wages.

Broad based bonus awards

CommonSpirit has proposed paying broad based bonus awards again this year with the same conditions we have objected to in previous years . We are tentatively meeting this week to hopefully bargain an agreement that is fair for all parties.

VM Resources

A number of RNs have notified WSNA related to frustrations with lack of response when contacting HR, payroll and employee health in particular. If you are not able to reach someone to assist you, please be sure to follow up your call with an email, retain that email communications and contact WSNA, especially if you feel there may be a contract violation. Regarding pay issues, we find the below information helpful and urge you to look on the facility website to insure it has not changed.

In solidarity,
Your VM officer team,
Jane Hill Littlejohn, Chair,
Arlene Alba – Secretary
Samuel Asencio – Treasurer
WSNA Nurse Representative – Sara Frey sfrey@wsna.org