Bellingham hospital workers on strike

The healthcare workers’ week-long strike will culminate with a strike rally on Friday, May 16

BELLINGHAM, WA (May 12, 2025) — At 6:00 a.m., certified nursing assistants, housekeeping staff, trauma registrars, phlebotomists, imaging technicians, doctors, advanced practice technicians and other essential hospital staff began their strike against PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center. Represented by SEIU Healthcare 1199NW and the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, a supermajority of the healthcare workers authorized the strike and delivered the legally-required strike notice to the hospital on May Day. 

The strike comes after more than eight months of contract bargaining. A strike rally is planned for Friday May 16 at 5:00 p.m.

Healthcare workers and clinicians are calling out PeaceHealth, a Vancouver based health system, for prioritizing massive executive salaries while offering the frontline workers who actually provide care substandard wages, that neither keep up with the cost of living nor maintain parity with wages paid to comparable healthcare workers along the I-5 corridor.

Healthcare workers represented by SEIU Healthcare 1199NW and UAPD picket together outside of the hospital. Photo: SEIU Healthcare 1199NW

While executives cash checks, low pay and the pressure to see more and more patients are driving burnout and making retaining and recruiting healthcare workers increasingly difficult. PeaceHealth St. Joseph is a Level II Trauma Center serving all the northern counties in the state; low staffing and high turnover caused by PeaceHealth’s failure to invest in workers puts the care available to an entire region at risk. 

Jose Reta, an MRI technician at PeaceHealth St Joe’s, explained why workers are striking: “Bellingham PeaceHealth is the most profitable of all their locations in Washington state, but they don’t seem to care that members of their own staff are living in the cars, or that we stock a food pantry for our colleagues who can meet their own basic needs because the pay is so low. I’ll be joining my coworkers on strike because PeaceHealth has shown us they just don’t care.”

PeaceHealth St. Joseph’s workers are asking community members to support their call for a contract that prioritizes patient care over corporate profits by joining them on the strike line (schedule available on Take a STAND), signing a petition, calling the PeaceHealth CEO, and donating to the Hardship Fund to help offset financial obligations for striking workers. 

“We’d rather be caring for patients. But with PeaceHealth refusing to address low wages and reduced health care benefits for the people who care for our community, we have no other choice,” said Courtney Sly, a trauma registrar who has worked at PeaceHealth for eighteen years. “We hope this strike is a wake up call to PeaceHealth that paying huge salaries to executives, while staff responsible for providing essential care and services are struggling to afford housing and other basic needs, is not in the best interests of their business or our community.”