SEIU Healthcare 1199NW

Legislative Session 2023

Fighting for our priorities and protecting our patients.

Join us for lobby day 2023

As frontline healthcare workers, we know what our patients need and what it takes to improve the care we provide. Lobby Day is our opportunity to share our stories with our elected representatives and advocate for their support in our biggest fights.

January 25, 2023

In-person at the Washington State Capitol

Contact your organizer to RSVP

Active Bills

2023

Our Legislative Priorities

#1

Safe Staffing Standards

Washington has faced a healthcare worker recruitment and retention crisis for years, but the pandemic has pushed our long-standing staffing problems to a breaking point.

Hospital executives repeatedly failed to prioritize recruitment and retention before this crisis, and now their short-term staffing measures have them claiming poverty in 2022. Inaction is not an option for workers and patients whose safety is at risk.

Last year, our Safe Staffing legislation passed the House with a strong bipartisan vote but failed to pass the Senate. This year, we are going back to Olympia to call on lawmakers to stand with healthcare workers and finish the job so we can do ours — keeping our patients safe.

#2

Workplace injury protections for workers,
especially our EVS coworkers

While nearly half of Washington’s worker comp claims are from musculoskeletal disorders, our State does not regulate the ergonomic practices that would stop them. This session, we’re asking lawmakers to remove the ban on regulating repetitive motion injuries in the workplace.

The wear and tear of unsafe workplaces puts healthcare workers – particularly cleaning workers in Environmental Services (EVS) – at increased risk of workplace musculoskeletal disorders and repetitive motion injuries. EVS and housekeeping workers, who are disproportionately BIPOC, immigrant, and women, are a critical part of every care team. Too often, employers don’t treat us or our bodies with respect.

These injuries mean weeks or months off the job to recover and often an end to our careers altogether. Workers who suffer workplace injuries are more likely to suffer opioid use and abuse, bankruptcy and even divorce.

Right now, it’s up to employers to make sure their work is safe — and they are failing. It’s time for Washington to step up and keep cleaning workers, healthcare workers and all workers safe.

#3

Behavioral Health Funding for Recruitment and Retention

We’re asking the legislature for a minimum of an ongoing 7% increase in reimbursement rates plus immediate workforce stabilization funds to increase workers’ wages and better support recruitment and retention of our workforce. Patients deserve stable, well-trained care teams with the bandwidth to give them the support they need. And that means workers deserve wages and benefits that live up to the important work they do. We are the critical safety net for thousands of Washingtonians with behavioral health conditions, but are historically underfunded. The legislature has an opportunity to act this year and raise wages by increasing reimbursement rates.

#4

Healthcare Workforce Development

Currently, we are not graduating enough skilled professionals to fill jobs in the healthcare field. This year, we’re asking lawmakers to invest matching dollars in our Training Fund.

From bedside care to service and tech professions, our healthcare workforce pipeline is in dire need of investment. This year, we’re asking lawmakers to grow our workforce pipeline by supporting and expanding the work of our Training Fund.

Our Training Fund has demonstrated higher program completion, retention and representation than traditional academic pathways into the healthcare workforce. That’s because it excels at meeting workers – particularly BIPOC workers – where they are at, providing wrap-around student support that can make or break workers’ education experience.

From counseling, digital access, childcare, and tutoring, our Training Fund specializes in meeting the needs of our specialized healthcare workforce. But right now, demand from workers and employers outstrips our resources to accept every applicant.

We know how to equitably grow our healthcare workforce and we’re asking lawmakers to prioritize State investment for our proven results.

Choose Your Adventure

Take Action

Write to your legislator

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Be social

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Sign Our Petition

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From Our Members

Why do we fight?

“I’ve been a CNA for 28 years because I love caring for my patients and my community. As hospital workers, we faced many staffing shortages before the pandemic, making it difficult to give the kind of attention and deliver the care we all desire to provide. With the pandemic, we are facing unprecedented staffing shortages as people leave our field and aren’t replaced. We need statewide staffing legislation so that caregivers — union and non-union — have safe patient assignments. We will all be patients someday, and we all deserve high quality care when we are.”

Savita Kashyup, CNA

PeaceHealth St. Joseph, Bellingham

“I am tired. You are tired. We are tired. We have been on the battlefields with bare bones staffing during this pandemic, and it has exacerbated a broken healthcare system even further. It has consequently inflamed the emotional, physical, and moral injury that we face on a daily basis. Not only are we fighting a system that doesn’t prioritize quality, safe, and dignified care, but also failing to recognize and respect the work that we do ourselves. We have exhausted every avenue possible at unit, campus, and system level to fight for safe staffing. This is why we need to take this fight beyond the hospital walls and engage our lawmakers to help all of us get what we need for our patients and each other.”