With things like staffing, workplace safety, housing, and behavioral health funding on the line, it’s crucial we use our voices to advocate for our priority bills in the Washington state legislature. Improving our workplaces doesn’t stop at the bargaining table, and we know that as frontline healthcare workers, our stories are powerful. That’s why we lobbied our legislators at our unionwide lobby day on January 16, and again at behavioral health lobby day on February 25!
At general lobby day, our priorities included:
- Safe staffing standards
- Workplace injury protections for our EVS coworkers
- Fully funding our state employee contracts
- Funding for behavioral health and housing worker retention
- Healthcare workforce development
- Housing for all
- And more!
In February, our lobbying focused on advancing behavioral health-specific priorities by Unified Behavioral Health coworkers.
We focused on:
- Long-overdue investments in our behavioral health system, statewide
- Funding our housing and homelessness workforce
- Supports for client and patient stability
- Housing for all
Thank you to the legislators who took the time to hear our stories, and especially to those who committed to supporting us with their vote on our priority bills.
