PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center has approved new employee contracts with its Service Employees International Union workers contingent on the union approving the same tentative accords that the sides arrived at last week.
The tentative agreements for SEIU nurses, service workers and dietary workers were approved unanimously by the seven hospital commissioners in a three-minute meeting tonight, signaling the end of an 18-month battle between the public hospital district and one of its largest unions.
Commissioners authorized Chief Executive Officer Eric Lewis to execute all contracts representing the tentative agreement with SEIU contingent upon the union membership’s approval of those contracts.
The hospital’s 363 SEIU Healthcare 1199NW employees were voting on the agreement today through 8 p.m.
OMC Chief Human Resource Officer Richard Newman said hospital administration and its bargaining team recommended that the board adopt the new agreements.
A three-year contract for SEIU was approved by hospital commissioners Feb. 1 without the union’s consent.
The sides reached a new, tentative agreement last Wednesday, a week after a state Public Employment Relations Commission mediator was scheduled to begin hearing the union’s unfair-labor practices complaint.
The union’s last three-year contract with OMC expired in October 2010.
Talks subsequently broke down over health care benefits and nurses’ staffing levels.
