More than 60 Registered Nurses at Airlift Northwest are proud members of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW.

In an effort to make progress the union Bargaining Team and UW/HMC/ALNW management worked hard on non-economic issues.

1. Creating an ALNW Joint Labor/Management Safety Committee that has the power to implement change in a timely manner.
2. Requiring management provide staffing data collection to the union on a monthly basis. This data will includes flight volumes, missed flights, response times, QA and QI, workplace injuries and other information related to our work.
3. A  fair and transparent process for layoff and/or restructure. It is important for management to respect our layoff and rehire rights by seniority in the organization.

We also discussed the Wenatchee base closure and were able to finalize the details regarding layoff and rehire rights (see Wenatchee base closure bulletin for more information).

Management asked the union Bargaining Team to consider “pausing” bargaining in order to give time for the leadership of ALNW to orient to their new positions and review the financial status of the organization.

The union Bargaining Team is considering this possibility, assuming that there would be (a) a clear timeline to restart bargaining and (b) a commitment from management to make no unilateral decisions regarding working conditions in the interim. We are waiting for both the January 30 ALNW all staff meeting and the February 11 union Membership Meeting before making any decisions.

“Except for a handful of issues, the largest part of the contract is coming together. I’m please that management has agreed to provide us with monthly data regarding flight volumes, QA and QI. This important information will help strengthen our voice regarding staffing issues at the bases, especially at BFI FW.”

“We worked further on the Harborview contract and came closer together on most of our important safety issues. We had a chance to directly discuss and clarify our bargaining priorities with Ed Eroe and look forward in the future to keeping those communication channels open.”

“We had a positive meeting with Ed Eroe and were able to clarify some of the confusing aspects of union/management communication. We discussed at length the details of the Wenatchee closure and also made significant inroads on non-economic issues.”

“Positive, constructive interactions with management helped create progress on multiple levels. C’est Bon!”

“We moved forward on many issues and hopefully made important inroads to improving communication.”