ONA healthcare workers on the picket line. Credit: Liberation photo/Greg Leonov
At 6 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 10, nearly 5,000 Providence healthcare workers, represented by the Oregon Nurses Association, went on strike in response to company’s refusal to engage in negotiations for a new contract. This is the largest healthcare strike in Oregon history. Nurses from Providence St. Vincent, Portland, Milwaukie, Willamette Falls, Newberg, Hood River, Seaside, Medford and the Women’s Clinic have hit the picket lines joined by physicians from Providence St. Vincent and the Women’s Clinic. This comes after a 10-day strike notice period where Providence refused to negotiate with the union.
Providence’s dangerous neglect of patients
The ONA has four basic demands, which emergency department nurse and bargaining committee chair Richard Botterill laid out as: “Decent staffing, decent healthcare, decent sick time, and decent compensation and wages.”
Sporting a Gaza University sweater, he explained: “We have a 46 bed emergency room. It’s not unusual for 30 or more, sometimes 38, of those beds filled with boarders waiting to go upstairs because there aren’t beds available for them up on the floors.”
According to Botterill, this causes backlogs.
“Sometimes the waits are five or six hours,” he explained and said that patients could be stuck waiting, having a stroke or on the verge of a heart attack. “It happens every single day,” Botterill said.
A recent National Institutes of Health study found that for each additional patient on a nurse’s case load, each patient’s 30-day mortality rate increases by 16%. This perfectly illustrates Providence’s neglect for not only their nurses but also their patients, who they claim to take care of.
The nationwide nursing staffing shortage is compounded at Providence’s hospitals because of their substandard pay and benefits. Many of the signs and t-shirts at the picket line carried the slogan “Recruit, Retain, Respect.” It is difficult to recruit and retain nurses because Providence pays some of the lowest wages in the region. In addition, they have no sick time. Instead, nurses are forced either to take from their vacation days, stay home without pay or come to work sick.
Providence employees have to pay $5,000 out of pocket for services at their own hospitals because their insurer, Etna, is no longer in-network at Providence hospitals. Kevin, an ED nurse, explained, “I would be really hesitant to vote yes on a contract that didn’t show healthcare improvements because our healthcare is not as good as any other hospital system. We haven’t had improvements in healthcare for a long time. If I bought into the Providence healthcare plan as just a private citizen, I would have lower copays and deductibles than I do as an employee.”
The effects of this mismanagement are felt by the healthcare workers and the community. A survey conducted by the ONA concluded that “90% of patients had a negative experience [at Providence hospitals] while 92% support union nurses and doctors striking to improve care.” Providence is worth $30 billion. The previous CEO made $12 million last year. By continuing this strike and refusing to bargain in good faith, Providence has made it clear what their priorities are.
‘When we’re together, we’re stronger’
In June 2023, nurses at Providence Portland and Seaside went on strike for four days before ONA reached a tentative agreement with Providence demanding better staffing, wages, and benefits. However, in the following year and a half Providence danced around contract talks with ONA. Nurses at Newberg, St. Vincent, and Willamette Falls Medical Centers have been without a contract since Dec. 31, 2023. The St. Vincent’s physician and nurse practitioner unit along with the two bargaining units at the Women’s Clinic, who all won their unions in 2023, have never had a contract. In June of last year, more than 3,000 nurses went on strike at Providence St. Vincent, Newberg, Willamette Falls, Medford, Hood River and Milwaukie for three days.
The unity of healthcare workers across 11 bargaining units at all eight hospitals and six clinics reflects their desire to provide the best care to their patients. Providence asserts to the media they are ready to negotiate. However, they are attempting to break the union’s solidarity by only offering to negotiate with six of the eight hospitals excluding the two biggest: St. Vincent’s and Portland.
Whitney, a nurse in the Mother-Baby unit, explained, “When we’re together, we’re stronger. Us being united amongst the Providence hospitals makes us stronger. It actually helps the other hospitals and nurses around the city because we’re raising the standard.”
ONA has filed several unfair labor practices against Providence, including refusal to bargain and retaliation against union leaders. They have stalled for 15 months for some units. These are 15 months where these essential workers have not received a raise.
Botterill expressed disgust at Providence’s refusal to offer retroactive pay when a new contract is finally agreed upon.
“Historically, we’ve always gotten retro pay, so whatever we come up with or whatever they come up with at the final wage proposal, then that should’ve been in effect since the beginning of last year,” he said. “For some of our nurses, that’s $10-12,000, and they’re saying no, we’re not going to pay you that. That’s not right.”
Fighting for the labor movement at large
While Providence shows neglect for its workers and patients, nurses and physicians are fighting back.
Whitney expressed, “We wanted to avoid the strike. We want to end the strike now … We want to help protect everybody. This is the hospital I go to when I get sick. I want to know my coworkers are given good care, I’m given good care, and everybody else in the community is.” A win for ONA would be a win for healthcare across the city — and a win for the labor movement at large.
Kevin reflected, “It would mean the power has shifted a little bit. … I’ve been working here 15 years. [Healthcare] has slowly chipped away. We used to have extended illness time, and that got taken away … Especially with the last election and with the dynamics changing in the country, corporations pledging fealty to government entities, it would mean a lot to working people to see that. That they still can get something just by fighting for it.”
