If you are a member of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW and want to report an incident at your facility related to COVID-19, have concerns about your safety in the workplace or questions about the impact of COVID-19 on your work, please call our COVID-19 member hotline at (866) 977-0247. The hotline is staffed from 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday.
As our healthcare employers are expanding services and are reporting to the state that they have sufficient PPE, employers must implement best practices to keep us and our patients safe. Fill out our intake form to share with us information about PPE and testing access in your workplace.
May 2020
Our Plan to Win
We know there is strength in our unity, in our union and in our resolve in the fight against the virus.
It’s normal to feel scared — scared for ourselves, for our families and for our community. But we know that the best way to overcome that fear is to remain strong, because we are stronger together and we have a plan. We will lead the efforts to combat COVID-19 together as a union of healthcare and behavioral healthcare workers on the front lines of treatment.
In unity,
Your Executive Board
Announcements & Updates
Latest News
Our union enters into Memorandum of Understanding with Island Hospital
Our union signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Island Hospital in response to the ongoing health concerns presented by the…
Read More 
We united across our union to win furlough protections at Harborview, Northwest Hospital
Patient care should never be sacrificed for the sake of the bottom line. As healthcare workers, we are our patients’…
Read More 
May news roundup: Member stories in the media
Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, national and local press have turned to SEIU Healthcare 1199NW members to learn about how the.
Read More Union Wins
Demanding Safety and Protections
We have worked with employers to ensure safety protections and policies for frontline healthcare workers. Because of our unity, many healthcare employers have made commitments:
Parking at UW
“When management informed us of their desire to redeploy employees throughout the UW Medicine System so that we can respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, we demanded the right to bargain. Many of us took digital action, flooding our leaderships’ inboxes with the union demands. One of the early wins, so far, has been free parking for the month of April at all UW campuses. We felt that was important since a lot of our members usually carpool or take the bus, which in this pandemic is not a safe option, and has forced many employees to drive to work. We’re still fighting hard and will have more wins to come because we have a strong union!”
Patrick Cassidy, Radiology Tech
Northwest Hospital | UW Medical Center
SEIU Healthcare 1199NW Executive Board
Advocacy in Montana
“We had a situation in our department that felt unsafe — a provider was going to perform an elective procedure and we were concerned about the proximity this doctor had with a confirmed COVID-19 employee. My co-workers and I felt we had to step in and do something. We wrote a letter to our director, demanding this case be cancelled or another doctor assigned. Our director was resistant at the beginning, not taking our concerns seriously — but we kept pushing. At the last minute, they cancelled the procedure! We were successful because we came together to advocate for our patients’ and co-workers’ safety. It wouldn’t have been the same if it had been just one nurse saying no.”
Mary Lamar, RN
Kalispell Regional Medical Center
