KHQ Right Now, August 13, 2010 Spokane - Nurses and healthcare workers at Deaconess and Valley hospitals overwhelmingly ratified a new contract agreement Friday afternoon with Community Health Systems, the Tennessee-based owners of the local hospitals. The new agreement covers 1,050 nurses, service and technical workers at Valley Hospital and Medical Center, and service and technical workers at Deaconess Medical Center. A tentative agreement was reached Wednesday morning, thereby averting a one-day unfair labor practice strike that was scheduled to begin at 7:00 AM. Turnout for the voting was heavy, with 98% voting in favor of the agreement. ... Healthcare

Informational protest does not constitute strike. John Stucke, Spokane Spokesman-Review, February 2, 2010 Barb Ormsby, a cardiac nurse for 23 years at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, joined dozens of other nurses at an informational picket on South McClellan Street on Tuesday February 2, 2010. The nurses are upset about bathroom breaks, staffing levels and a move to change their retirement benefits from the security of a pension to a stock market based plan to a 401(k). Nurses are accusing Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center of pushing unfair and unsafe new workplace rules that would curtail rest breaks and trim staffing levels. ... Sacred

Highlight Patient Safety Concerns During Stalled Contract Negotiations. Washington State Nurses Association, February 2, 2010 Spokane - Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA), representing more than 1,500 registered nurses at Sacred Heart Medical Center, held an informational picket today to highlight issues critical to patient safety. Contract negotiations have stalled over several key issues including the ability to take uninterrupted rest breaks, inadequate nurse staffing levels, and changes to retirement benefits. ... RNs

John Stucke, Spokane Spokesman-Review, June 25, 2008

Registered nurses voted out their union at Deacness Medical Center.

It was a bold move Tuesday night by the 550 nurses, coming on the eve of Deaconess' likely sale to the largest for-profit hospital company in the United States.

The final tally was 209 nurses voting to oust the powerful Service Employees International Union 1199NW and 184 voting to retain the state's leading union for health care workers.

"They think they have a white knight coming in," said Curt Williams, organizing director for SEIU.

Nurses who wanted the union out said they are ready to take their chances by ending the union's stormy four-year tenure representing nurses.

Respiratory therapist says SEIU 'tried to strong-arm' hospital. John Stucke, Spokane Spokesman-Review, June 19, 2008 Hundreds of registered nurses and technical workers at Deaconess Medical Center are trying to dump their union. The move comes even as the community-based nonprofit hospital is about to be sold to a Fortune 500 corporation with headquarters outside Nashville, Tennessee. Richard Ahearn, regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, said the federal agency will conduct a decertification election Tuesday. ... Deaconess

Deaconess denies nurses' allegations. John Stucke, Spokesman-Review, May 10, 2008 Union nurses at Deaconess Medical Center contend that layoffs and low morale have eroded patient care and safety and demand management rehire nursing assistants to preserve the core mission of Spokane's second-largest hospital. The nurses have taken their concerns public, acknowledging that it could further damage the hospital's fragile financial condition. "But at this point, we feel people need to know things are getting worse at their community hospital," said Chris Barton, secretary of the Service Employees International Union 1199 NW. ... Hospital

The Olympian, July 15, 2007 Providence St. Peter Hospital nurses might start informational pickets soon, after rejecting a contract offer from the hospital, the nurses union reported in a news release. The United Staff Nurses Union, Local 141 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, last week rejected the contract offer by a 97 percent margin and also authorized informational picketing about the unresolved contract issues, the union reported. The union said in its news release that the date that the pickets will start have not been set. Union spokesman John Aslakson said in an earlier interview that the main issues were staffing levels, patient care and economic concerns. He did not return a call on Sunday. A call to St. Peter was not returned Sunday. The three-year contract expired March 1.

Ralph Thomas, Seattle Times, July 1, 2007 Olympia - Gov. Christine Gregoire says she's convinced state wages have fallen too far behind local government and private industry. "We have nothing to recruit with, because we are so far beneath the private sector," Gregoire said. The new state-worker pay raises, which take effect today, will help close that gap, she said. The raises were negotiated by the governor's office and more than a dozen unions that represent more than two-thirds of state-agency workers. All state employees get 3.2 percent cost-of-living raises now, and another 2 percent a year from now. The contracts also renew a 1.6 percent raise workers got last year. While the cost-of-living raises also apply to nonunion employees, the Legislature delayed the raises for those workers by two months. ... Governor

Ralph Thomas, Seattle Times Olympia, July 1, 2007 Olympia - Like thousands of state workers, Mike Dyer just got a really big raise. Starting this month, Dyer, a nurse with more than two decades of experience at Western State Hospital, will see his salary jump by 20 percent - pushing his annual pay from about $67,500 to more than $81,000. Many state workers are getting the biggest raises they've seen in nearly two decades - maybe the biggest ever - under new contracts negotiated by Gov. Christine Gregoire's office and approved by the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Thousands of workers are getting double-digit increases. Some raises exceed 25 percent. In all, increases in salaries and benefits for some 111,000 state workers will cost nearly $1.6 billion in state, federal and other funds over the next two years. The state's surging economy made the raises possible. But they're also a testament to the growing clout of the state's public-employee unions. ... State

Paula Bock, Seattle Times, December 18, 2006 Tacoma - Of all the differences between hospital life in her native Philippines and here, in Washington state, one in particular has stuck with Maricris Espino, RN. It's not so much the salary (though she earns in two days the equivalent of a month's wages in her home country), or the technology (IV pumps, fancy electric beds), or the hospital hierarchy in which nurses examine patients and make suggestions to doctors. What so often strikes Espino when she walks into a patient's room is that they're alone. ... As

Washington State Nurses Association, November 28, 2006 Seattle - Hundreds of nurses from St. Joseph Medical Center and surrounding areas hit the streets for information picketing to protest stalled contract negotiations between the Hospital and the Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA), representing more than 900 RNs at St. Joseph Medical Center. WSNA has also filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against the Hospital for not allowing the union to public areas of the Hospital. ... Patient

Mai Hoang, Yakima Herald, October 3, 2006 Today's National Labor Relations Board ruling on union eligibility for nurses will likely have little impact in Washington state, the president of one of the nation's nursing unions said in Yakima. The board ruled that nurses who are permanently assigned to manage work shifts should be considered supervisors and therefore cannot not have US labor protections if they organize. But in this state, about 95 percent of nurses are already unionized, said registered nurse Diane Sosne, president of the Nurse Alliance of SEIU and SEIU District 1199 Northwest, which represents 20,000 nurses and health-care employees working in hospitals throughout Washington state. ... Labor

Seattle Times, September 29, 2006 Virginia Mason Medical Center did not have to bargain with the nurses union before imposing a requirement to wear face masks if nurses declined to get a flu shot, an administrative law judge has ruled. But the National Labor Relations Board judge also found that the medical center violated federal labor law by failing to bargain in good faith, including providing false and misleading information about its intentions regarding the flu-control policy. The judge also found the medical center failed to provide information to the union in a timely manner. ... Labor

Carol M. Ostrom, Seattle Times, September 29, 2006 About 200 nurses and other union health-care workers from Harborview Medical Center rallied Thursday amid contract negotiations to protest a wage proposal from the hospital. "We make considerably less than all the other hospitals in the region," said Sunniva Zaratkiewicz, a registered nurse and member of the bargaining team for SEIU 1199NW, the union that represents nurses, social workers, medical technicians, advanced registered nurse practitioners and physician assistants at Harborview. She said the result is high turnover. ... Nurses

The medical center wants to turn all nurses into supervisors - nullifying their union status.
Geov Parrish, Seattle Weekly, July 12, 2006

I have this vision that because I own a dog, soon I will be legally prohibited from joining a union.

It's not quite that bad - yet. But a series of decisions expected this summer from the Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) could nullify the union memberships of millions of people in the United States and prevent any future unionization attempts by tens of millions more. And one of the most closely watched harbingers in the nation of how these rulings might play out is here in Seattle. ... Showdown