In what could be the largest nursing strike the state has seen, thousands of Providence nurses took to the picket line for three days last week.
About 3,000 demonstrated outside six hospitals — Providence St. Vincent , Willamette Falls in Oregon City , Newberg , Medford, Hood River and Milwaukie — from June 18-21 in a bid for better contracts and working conditions.
The nurses returned to work June 23, with plans to return to the bargaining table with Providence management and a federal mediator toward the end of July, according to a June 22 press release.
Why did Providence nurses go on strike?
The Oregon Nurses Association — a union with more than 20,000 members across the state — has been in contract negotiations with Providence for as long as nine months at some facilities, including three days of federal mediation in early June. Nurses have been working under expired contracts since last fall, and voted in late May to authorize the strike.
“We went on strike because Providence would not negotiate with us over staffing language that we felt was really important in the contracts,” Nicole Hudson, emergency room nurse and executive committee vice president at Willamette Falls, said. “Protecting patients, keeping those numbers manageable for nurses so that we can give the best care we can for patients.”
The Providence nurses had four primary demands that brought them to the picket lines: safe staffing, adequate paid leave, affordable health insurance and mental health care, and fair market wages.
Different hospitals, same cause
Waving and cheering, the striking nurses at Oregon City's Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center proudly displayed picket signs with messages like “Prov Nurses Deserve Better” and “Patients over Profits.” In Newberg, about 20 nurses — many with children and family members joining in — took to the corner of Highway 99W and Providence Drive to heft signs and demonstrate against Providence Newberg Medical Center. Across from Providence St. Vincent Hospital on Southwest Barnes Road, picketers stood in the beating sun hoisting signs as passing drivers blared their car horns in support, while a similar scene unfolded at three other hospitals in Medford, Hood River and Milwaukie.
Miles apart, but together in solidarity, Providence nurses across the region united in their protest.
“This three-day strike has been wonderful. There has been a lot of support, not only from our community, but all the staff nurses that are out here; it's been so unifying,” Lisa Gregory, a member of the negotiating board, said at the St. Vincent strike.
St. Vincents care management nurse Jennifer Brix said health care providers have taken a major blow from lost benefits. A Providence employee with 24 years under her belt, Brix said she will be forced to retire in 15 years rather than five due to a lost pension. Brix also highlighted how Providence pays employees less than nurses who work for other hospitals. According to a “fact sheet” distributed by ONA prior to the strike, Providence’s final pay offer is more 6% less than nurses make at Oregon Health & Science University — and nurses at Providence pay more for healthcare plans than those working at OHSU and Kaiser.
In Oregon city, Hudson concurred.
“The insurance portion does impact me and my family,” Hudson said. “Both of my daughters and my husband work here at Willamette Falls; it’s kind of a family for us. We've seen the benefits decrease in what they cover, the cost increase as far as how much we have to pay out of pocket, the things that aren't covered under the plan. I've been here 14 years at Willamette Falls and we've seen those benefits just get worse and worse.”
Nurses in Newberg cited the pay and benefits as a major hurdle to recruiting and retaining nurses.
“Our hospital pays less than any other Providence (facility) and less than most other hospitals,” Beth Lepire, a charge nurse in the birthing center at PNMC, said. “So, it’s really hard to recruit the nurses that we need here.”
PNMC has roughly 220 nurses, ranging in age and experience, she said.
“So, we were hoping that by gaining the other hospitals that would speak a louder voice to Providence, saying, ‘Hey, you know, you’ve got six hospitals now talking to you,” Lepire said.
Other health care professionals were recently allowed to join the ONA, Lepire said, including some doctors.
“They are working on their contracts and they’re not working with the doctors either,” she said. “So, they said they would stand with us if they don’t have a contract as well.”
Protesters were joined by local and national leaders who were supportive of their cause.
“I'm here to stand with the nurses, because prioritizing nurses means prioritizing patients — they go hand in hand,” U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici said at the St. Vincent strike. “If nurses are not in good working conditions and don't have a fair contract, they know that affects their patients.”
Providence responds
“ONA’s decision to strike is not a surprise,” Jennifer Burrows, chief executive at Providence Oregon, said. “However, it does sadden me both personally and as a fellow nurse … Since we started negotiating with ONA in the fall of 2023, we proposed substantial wage increases and contract enhancements that our nurses have requested, including language related to (the state’s) new staffing legislation."
Although Providence negotiates each hospital contract separately, “we have market-competitive offers of approximately 10% increases in the first year of the contracts,” Burrows said, adding that a typical full-time nurse at a Providence facility makes more than $100,000 a year.
Burrows also said Providence’s benefit package is sound.
“Providence pays 82% of the cost of health care coverage for our caregivers," she said. "The health care industry average is 70%.”
Providence facilities remained open during the strike after hiring replacement nurses to step in.
As a result, many nurses on strike were not able to return to work until Sunday because the replacement nurses were hired for five days, while the strike only lasted three — a move heavily criticized by ONA members.
“Shame on Providence for not bargaining in the 10-day notice to avert this strike — for spending millions on replacement workers when our nurses could be in their caring for our patients,” ONA executive director Anne Tan Piazza said.
"Providence is prioritizing patients," a Providence spokesperson stated in a June 19 release. "Bringing in a replacement nursing workforce and building clinical contingency plans is a complex process across six hospitals. Doing it well — as we did (June 18) — takes a total commitment of hundreds of leaders, volunteers and replacement workers. We also want to honor our contractual replacement period with our temporary nurses."
The strike will delay contract negotiations, Burrows said, as Providence, “will not return to the bargaining table until the strike concludes,” a fact which Burrows said the ONA was aware when it initiated the strike, yet “repeatedly rejected proposed bargaining dates from Providence teams” and “in some cases we did not meet for bargaining sessions for more than a month.”
Aftermath
Though both sides remain divided on a number of issues yet to be settled in a new contract, thousands of Providence nurses went back to work on Sunday, June 23, putting an official end to the strike.
“We had a smooth handover this morning,” Providence CEO Jennifer Burrows told KOIN 6 News. “So all services are back in place and operating the way that they normally would.”
The two sides still have their work cut out for them, however.
“I think we have seen during this period that one of the places that we still have got some issues to work through is around nurse staffing," said Kathy Keane, the chair of the bargaining unit for Providence St. Vincent. "We would like to see a more collaborative approach and have the nurses have input into what kinds of nurse- to-patient ratios or, you know, appropriate for their work areas.”
KOIN 6 News, a partner news organization, contributed in part to this story.
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