Nurses plan picket at St. Jo’s on April 29

Excerpted from Cascadia Daily News 4-17-2025 [edited for brevity and with comments by IWW]:

Nurses plan to picket outside PeaceHealth St. Joseph’sr on Tuesday, April 29, one month after rejecting a proposed contract (follow that link for more on the story- IWW). The picket is on if the hospital and union do not come to an agreement by April 18 (IWW will post on that).

The Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA) represents 1,100 nurses at the hospital. Wages, a change in insurance providers and “a feeling of disrespect from management” are the union’s main issues, a press release states. 

The union’s contract expired March 31, freeing members from its “no strike” clause which also forbade pickets. The union has not had a bargaining session with the hospital since mid-March, before the contract vote.

The proposed contract, rejected by the union, would have given nurses 4.25% across-the-board raises effective April 1 in addition to a $1 wage increase for nurses with eight or fewer years of experience. Nurses would have received a 4% raise each April for the following two years. A nurse with one year of experience, under this wage plan, would have been making $44.67 per hour starting this month. 

The union contends the proposed wages do not cover Bellingham’s cost of living. In March, a union spokesperson said management had been unwilling to move on wages during negotiations.

In an earlier interview, union representatives said the hospital’s switch to providing Moda Health insurance to its employees was a major sticking point. The plan is more expensive and effectively limits employees’ care options to PeaceHealth providers (the equivalent of being limited to shopping at the ‘company store’- IWW). 

A nurse at the hospital, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, has felt the impact of the new plan. “I just made the decision to not refill medication because it got too expensive because of health insurance,” he said. “It is directly because of PeaceHealth’s choices.” He said he wanted to see wage increases that kept pace with the increased cost of living and health care, and will attend the picket.  Two other unions at the hospital are also bargaining with the hospital system over a new contract. The union representing technicians and lab professionals, among others, authorized a strike last week. PeaceHealth is contesting the collective bargaining rights of another union, representing hospitalists.