The work stoppage comes after more than six months of talks. About 1,300 nurses and their supporters plan to picket both Everett campuses, 1700 13th St. and 900 Pacific Ave. They plan to picket for 24 hours each day, with rotating shifts. Nurses are also planning a candlelight vigil for 6 p.m. Thursday at Drew Nielson Neighborhood Park, across the street from the hospital at 13th Street and Colby Avenue.

Many supporters are expected to join the picket line, nurse Kelli Johnson said.

Nurses pressed hard for specific patient-to-nurse ratios to be written into the bill. Though it didn’t happen, they expressed confidence the new law will get them there eventually while boosting morale immediately.

“We needed something this year. This is very strong,” said Kelli Johnson, an emergency room nurse at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett who attended the bill signing. “I think it’s going to turn things around in the staffing crisis.”

Kelli Johnson, a nurse at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, said it’s progress even if it’s not as much as hoped.

A key piece is it will require hospitals do a lot more reporting to the state on when they are not sufficiently staffed, she said.

”Nurses and health care workers have been carrying the burden for a long time. We needed something passed. This bill is that something a step in the right direction,” she said.

Kelli Johnson has worked as a nurse for 10 years, the past three in the emergency department at Providence Everett. She has been talking to public officials for her patients and herself wherever possible this past year: the state, Snohomish County and the city of Everett.

“If we can’t get legislators to heed the concerns that nurses are trying to share with them about what’s happening at the bedside,” Johnson said, “it doesn’t bode well for the future of health care.”