More than 900 PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center employees started voting on Thursday, April 3, on whether or not to authorize a strike. The vote will be counted Tuesday, April 8.
Reaching this point “shows just how deeply PeaceHealth has failed its frontline staff and Whatcom County,” union president Jane Hopkins said in a prepared statement.
“No one takes this decision lightly, and our goal is not to strike, but to reach an agreement,” she added.
Spokesperson Amy Drury said PeaceHealth is taking precautionary steps to make sure the same care is provided to patients if the vote to authorize passes and a strike is called.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare 1199NW represents a sweeping group of PeaceHealth employees, including technicians, lab professionals and service workers. The union’s bargaining team has sat down for more than a dozen sessions with PeaceHealth since September.
However, PeaceHealth has “absolutely not” been bargaining in good faith, said Jose Reta, an MRI technologist at St. Joseph and a member of the SEIU bargaining team.
He confirmed the two sides remain far apart on several issues, including wages and medical benefits.
“Given our offer and commitment, we are disappointed by the union’s decision,” Drury wrote in an email to Cascadia Daily News.
Instead, she argued that union employees should be given an opportunity to vote on PeaceHealth’s most recent offer, claiming it addresses issues SEIU highlighted as important.
Reta told CDN the two sides sat down at the negotiation table on March 27 and were committed to getting a contract hammered out, with PeaceHealth’s team saying they were willing to stay late to get it done.
But when it became clear that the Washington State Nurses Association union members overwhelmingly voted down the proposed contract, PeaceHealth left the table, he said.
In an email to PeaceHealth administrators, Reta wrote PeaceHealth’s “Best, Final and Last” contract falls “very short” of addressing issues caregivers are facing and was an attempt to “rush to an agreement.”
He later told CDN that the financial compensation outlined in the proposal was hurting the hospital’s recruitment and retention of staff.
Fight for Public Support
Members of SEIU and Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD) showed up in numbers in the Whatcom County Council chambers on March 25. Those who spoke during public comment pleaded with council members to support their efforts to secure a “fair” contract from PeaceHealth.
The caregivers told stories of co-workers sleeping in their cars and relying on the “Dove Pantry” — an in-house food bank — “filled and emptied by co-workers daily.” They raised various concerns about how St. Joseph is operated, from “often running at full capacity” to issues with staff retention, which they tie to the lack of competitive wages.
PeaceHealth Northwest CEO Chuck Prosper sent an email to City of Bellingham and Whatcom County elected officials on March 24 prior to public comment that week “to avoid any misperception as to the status of negotiations.”
“Our goal is to ensure that the negotiations result in agreements that are fair and balanced, considering the varied interests of our caregivers, the community and PeaceHealth, particularly as we look ahead to the potential funding and other challenges we face in providing healthcare,” Prosper wrote in an email obtained by CDN.
In his email, Prosper provided various specifics for each union negotiation. He also accused SEIU of proposing “wage increases that are not aligned with the Bellingham and Whatcom County market.”
SEIU union researchers have provided data to their bargaining team based on trauma 2 medical centers and job titles at similar union employers in Washington, along with cost of living data, market demand and other factors, Kenia Escobar, a communication director for SEIU, previously explained.
Amy Drury told CDN in January that PeaceHealth relies on independent surveys and market data to monitor pay rates for the positions.
SEIU has been working to raise public awareness about their contract for months. In January, more than 100 people took part in an “informational picket line” in support of SEIU and UAPD union members.
County council member Jon Scanlon told CDN that he attended the event and heard many similar concerns at the council meeting on March 25.
“We heard a lot about cost of living and how that impacts people,” Scanlon said. “They were heroes during the pandemic, and they do tough work.”
“I hope that those negotiations go forward in a way where our local health care workers are able to get a living wage,” he added.
County council member Barry Buchanan told CDN on March 26 that when SEIU went on strike years ago, he walked the picket line with them.
“I’d do it again,” he said. “I tend to stand with organized labor.”
PeaceHealth is in negotiations with three unions representing three different groups of caregivers at St. Joseph. It continues to challenge the collective bargaining rights of a fourth group of medical providers, who unionized under the joint employer umbrella of PeaceHealth and Sound Physicians.
“Caregivers are tired of hearing promises that you want to invest in this community, but the current proposal doesn’t match that reality,” Reta wrote in an email to PeaceHealth administrators. “Your offer may look good to your administration, but not to the workers.”
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.
