PORTLAND, Ore. —Bosses’ intransigence, in one case for more than a year, led the Oregon Nurses Association/AFT and the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association to give the state’s Providence Hospital chain a legally mandated strike authorization notice on December 30.
Unless there is a settlement by January 10, the largest health care workers’ strike in Oregon history, plus its first-ever physicians’ strike, will begin at 6 am that day. The strike would be open-ended, the two unions said.
They also filed multiple federal labor law-breaking—formally called unfair labor practices—charges against the chain for “refusal to bargain, bargaining in bad faith, unilateral implementation of mandatory subjects, denial of access to employee representatives, and retaliation against union leaders.”
Chain executives claimed they stopped talking “because they have to prepare for a strike.”
“Providence is a $30 billion corporation which employs high-priced attorneys to bargain their contracts. Do Providence executives really think Oregonians are going to believe the attorneys who bargain their contracts are going to be recruiting replacement nurses to work at the bedside?” the two unions retorted in filing the labor law-breaking complaints.
“Their preposterous and contradictory claims are misleading, dangerous, and illegal.”
As in other health care workers’ struggles and strikes nationwide, patient care is the key issue in the looming Oregon walkout by the MDs, nurses, physician associates, nurse midwives and nurse practitioners from eight hospitals and six clinics.
The physicians of the Pacific Northwest union practice at Providence St. Vincent Hospital. The other workers are there and in other facilities around the state, including in Medford, Milwaukie, Newberg, Willamette Falls and Hood River.
Similar struggles over profits versus patient care have led physicians at a for-profit statewide hospital chain in Minnesota to unionize, along with RNs at the largest hospital in western North Carolina and health care workers in Burlington, Vt., among others.
New York City’s municipal hospitals settled with their RNs, represented by the New York State Nurses Association/National Nurses United, after Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., warned the hospitals the state Labor Department would send in inspectors to see if—as the RNs said—state safe-staffing laws were being flouted.
Besides its huge market value, top Providence “executives make million-dollar salaries and are too focused on profits and not enough on high-quality patient care,” the Oregon unions said in their strike authorization announcement. “Providence’s outgoing CEO made more than $12 million in 2024.
“Corporatization of healthcare has left many Providence employees frustrated and burnt out as they are being told to spend less and less time with patients and more time trying to drive up profits.”
The unions said critical care units and emergency care is understaffed at Providence clinics and hospitals. That “delays care and endangers patients,” the two unions said.
“Providence has ignored its responsibilities to its workers, its patients, and to Oregonians. Healthcare workers are asking Providence to invest more in patient safety, stop cuts to healthcare, follow the Safe Staffing law, and offer regionally competitive wages and benefits to be able to recruit and retain more staff.”
With talks stalled at the local level, federal mediators stepped in to try to kick-start “intensive negotiations” on December 16. “But over the course of the week it became clear hospital management was not interested in responding to their concerns with serious proposals.”
And in the past, Providence even refused to bargain after unions issued mandated 10-day strike notices, unlike other Oregon health care institutions statewide. “If they continue this unreasonable practice, there will be no way to avert the strike.”
Besides the unsafe staffing, the unions say Providence does not offer competitive wages and benefits, leading to high burnout and turnover. Its health care plans force some workers “to pay $5,000 out of pocket to receive services at the place they work.”
The union said the two largest groups of affected workers are in Portland: Providence Portland Medical Center, where the contract covering 1510 RNs expired December 31, and at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, where 1875 RNs have been working without a contract since Dec. 31, 2023.
Another 80 physicians, clinic nurses, certified midwives, and nurse practitioners at St. Vincent voted union in May 2023, began bargaining that November and still have yet to reach a first contract.
Other large groups working under expired contracts include 140 RNs since March 31 at Hood River hospital, 380 RNs since March 24 in Medford Hospital—where bargaining began a year ago—and 250 RNs since May 31 in Milwaukie.
Backers of the workers can get information at OregonRN.org/patientsbeforeprofits. Besides information about the strike, it has a community petition to urge Providence to bargain.
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