At Providence Health & Services institutions throughout Oregon, some 5,000 nurses, hospitalists, and other healthcare professionals have been given permission to go on strike.
Although there are no impending strikes, their votes over the last two months have set the ground for a historic conflict that could interrupt health care for thousands of people throughout the state.
Nine different labor contracts that have expired or will expire before the year is out are being negotiated with Providence by a number of bargaining units. After months of negotiations, a rare and recently formed physicians’ organization is also attempting to negotiate its first labor agreement with Providence.
The Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association, which represents doctors, and the Oregon Nurses Association have not stated whether employees at seven Providence hospitals and its chain of women’s clinics will go on strike at the same time. There are no scheduled strike dates, and federal labor regulations mandate that health workers give ten days’ notice prior to a walkout.
Frontline healthcare workers are keen to reach a settlement with Providence and do not wish to go on strike, according to Peter Starzynski, a spokesman for the nurses union.
In October, the units representing physicians, nurses, and other healthcare workers at Providence St. Vincent near Beaverton, as well as six Providence women’s clinics, approved the first strike authorization votes. Soon after, in November, nurses at Providence Hood River, Providence Newberg, Providence Milwaukie, and Providence Willamette Falls in Oregon City authorized a strike.
The most recent to approve strikes were nurses at Providence Seaside and Providence Portland Medical Center, the biggest hospital in the health system. This previous week was when their votes came to an end.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Providence Medford nurses started a vote to authorize a strike.
It’s difficult to predict if every unit will plan to strike simultaneously. During talks, unions frequently hold votes to authorize strikes, but they frequently accept contracts without actually going on strike.
Although it hasn’t been decided yet, it might theoretically work if they all go on strike together, Starzynski stated. In that sense, we have every option available to us.
Most nurses at her hospital and other Providence hospitals are annoyed by the speed of discussions, according to Beth Lepire, a nurse who works in the labor and delivery department at Providence Newberg.
That does not imply that anyone wishes to go on strike. According to Lepire, it simply indicates that we feel as though we are reaching a point where we are at a loss for what to do. We want to prevent a strike because no one wants to go on one. We approved it because we genuinely care about our patients.
All of the negotiating groups would walk out at the same time, making it one of the biggest health care worker strikes in Oregon history. The biggest health system in the state, which has been bracing for the eventuality, would be hampered.
Our patients and communities around the state would not benefit from a strike. Providence said in a statement that union leaders are aware of this. However, in the event that caregivers represented by ONA go on strike at any of our institutions, Providence is taking the required steps to guarantee the continuation of safe care in our communities.
According to Providence, its objective is to come to an agreement with every unit presently negotiating a contract. Highly competitive offers, including double-digit percentage compensation increases, have been made, according to the nonprofit Catholic health system.
Last summer, the 1,300 nurses at Providence Portland Medical Center who are members of the Oregon Nurses Association went on a five-day walkout. Several hundred more nurses from Providence Seaside joined them.
Weeks later, those nurses came to a contract agreement that included additional paid time off, a promise from the hospital to adhere to the state’s new staffing regulation, and pay increases ranging from 17% to 26% over two years.
However, because the two-year agreement includes a year of retroactive pay, including a period when the nurses were working without a contract, those just signed contracts will expire on December 31.
Separately, since September 2023, Providence and the nurses at St. Vincent, Hood River, Milwaukie, Willamette Falls, and Newberg have been engaged in contract discussions. Additionally, since last November, Providence has been in communication with the approximately 80 nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, physician assistants, and clinic nurses who work in six women’s clinics in the Portland metro region.
The Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association represents 70 St. Vincent hospitalists, who have been negotiating their first contract with Providence since January. Last year, they decided to form a union.
Physicians at Providence St. Vincent joined the union to push for safer staffing and more control over the business decisions that determine how doctors treat patients, according to internal medicine hospitalist Dr. Robert Fojtasek. He claimed that with insufficient personnel, doctors and nurses are overburdened by the need to see more patients with increasingly complicated diseases.
According to Fojtasek, “I believe that we are now entering a situation where medicine and business are butting heads.” Frontline care professionals, in my opinion, are committed to provide compassionate, high-quality care, but the business world has reached a place where they view it as maximizing a profit margin, where the more people you see, the more money the company makes.
Many nurses say they are ready to go on strike because they are so tired and frustrated by the COVID-19 outbreak. They attribute the health system’s personnel problems to uncompetitive pay and benefits, which they claim have made it more difficult to attract new employees and keep hold of existing ones.
Negotiators continue to disagree on a variety of topics, including workforce levels, scheduling procedures, and compensation and benefits.
Myrna Jensen, a representative for the Oregon Nurses Association, said that the retroactive pay increases that would come with a new contract are another bone of contention. She claimed that Providence’s offers this year at Oregon hospitals with expiring contracts do not include the retroactive compensation that was provided to Providence nurses in Portland and Seaside last year.
–Kristine de Leon uncovers tales about data enterprise, small company, retail, and consumer health. [email protected] is her email address.
Your support is essential to our journalism.Sign up now.
Note: Every piece of content is rigorously reviewed by our team of experienced writers and editors to ensure its accuracy. Our writers use credible sources and adhere to strict fact-checking protocols to verify all claims and data before publication. If an error is identified, we promptly correct it and strive for transparency in all updates, feel free to reach out to us via email. We appreciate your trust and support!
