PORT ANGELES – Olympic Medical Center will request formal mediation of a wage and benefits dispute with its nurses, maintenance workers and housekeepers.
For their part, the employees said they’d rather return to the table to try to hammer out an agreement, which is now at an impasse.
Service Employees International Union 1199 NW sent a half-dozen of its 334 members to address Tuesday’s meeting of OMC commissioners.
“Invest in the workers of the hospital . . . like you invest in all the capital projects,” said Sue Yanik of Port Angeles, a nurse who has worked 17 years at the medical center.
Two more nurses, Lisa Unger and Mary Reynolds, both of Port Angeles, gave commissioners notebooks filled with members’ messages and read a selection.
“Mandatory overtime is a way of life,” one wrote, and night shifts are hard to fill.
At issue are wages and a co-payment SEIU members do not want added to their health insurance.
Rich Newman, hospital administrator of personnel, said the union and OMC had reached an impasse, although the parties have agreed to some vacation and wage issues.
He said the hospital would ask the Public Employees Relations Commission, a state agency, for formal mediation of “some heartfelt, hard-held positions.”
However, Adelina Gonzales, the union’s lead organizer, said, “a mediator would take several months.
“We think we can return to the table and get the job done. That’s our goal.”
Nevertheless, the union will take the mediation request to its bargaining team and chief negotiator, she said.
Gonzales handed out SEIU buttons, T-shirts and newsletters outside Linkletter Hall, where commissioners met in the basement of the hospital at 939 Caroline St.
The newsletter’s front page declared, “98 percent of our members voted to reject management’s offer.”
Among other issues, the union wants wage parity with Seattle-area hospitals, something the hospital is unwilling to grant.
“OMC cannot maintain long-term financial viability if we pay ‘Seattle wage rates’ as requested by the union, and also continue to offer the outstanding benefits that in key areas equal or exceed what Seattle area employers offer,” a hospital position paper said.
The labor standoff wasn’t the sole controversy on Tuesday as two of the seven OMC commissioners opposed buying a 20 percent interest in Family Medicine of Port Angeles planned clinic at Front and Cherry streets.
