Providence is accusing the state’s largest nurses union of “power flexing” after nurses at Providence St. Vincent signaled they are willing to strike in what could be another widespread work stoppage at the hospital system.
The Oregon Nurses Association announced Thursday that 1,800 nurses at the hospital located in unincorporated Washington County, just west of Portland, gave union negotiators the green light to call for a strike.
Nurses at St. Vincent and five other Providence hospitals walked off the job for three days in June as part of an increasingly bitter quarrel between the union and the giant hospital system. The walkout represented the largest nurses strike in Oregon history.
Four months later those nurses still do not have a contract. Meanwhile, health care workers at two other Providence workplaces have approved potential strikes and contract negotiations remain open at all of the system’s eight hospitals in Oregon.
Nurses at Providence St. Vincent have been in contract negotiations with management for more than a year. They are seeking better staffing and a commitment from the hospital to abide by nurse-to-patient ratio required by a new law that nurses say will improve patient care, according to a statement from the union.
“We don’t want to strike,” Kathy Keane, a registered nurse and bargaining unit chair for Providence St. Vincent, said in the statement. “But we can’t stand by and let Providence continue to fail our patients and our community. We need real change and a strike may be the only path left to protect our community’s health.”
Providence responded with a statement blasting union leaders for continuing to “place power before patients, issuing misleading statements and wildly optimistic assessments about the impact of their actions.”
The 10-day notice allowed St. Vincent “adequate time to cease admissions and transfer patients or to reach a fair agreement and avert a work stoppage,” according to a nurses’ union press release Oct. 23.
But Providence’s new statement, however, claimed that “patient care will be negatively affected,” calling the union’s suggestion that the hospital stop admitting patients “unrealistic and irresponsible.”
Providence’s hospitals, as well as others in the region, do not have the capacity to suddenly take 400 patients affected by the strike, according to the statement.
Providers elsewhere could strike, too
A week earlier, a group of doctors, physician associates, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and clinic nurses at Providence Women’s Clinic and Providence St. Vincent also voted to authorize strikes.
The group of health care workers includes doctors represented by the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association, a union organized by and affiliated with the Oregon Nurses Association. A strike by the doctors would be the first of its kind in Oregon history, according to the union.
Nurses and allied health care workers at Providence’s Portland and Seaside hospitals as well as its Home Health & Hospice service went on strike in June last year.
Each of the three workplaces eventually reached contracts with Providence. But the new contracts had shorter timeframes than usual because of the strikes and are set to expire on Dec. 31, 2024. All three began negotiations again with Providence management last month.
Providence accused the nurses union of seeking to “engineer an eight-hospital strike” that would disrupt care for thousands of patients. The union did not immediately respond to a request from The Lund Report for a response.
A federal negotiator has been assigned to negotiations at Providence St. Vincent with the next bargaining date set for Nov. 15.
The nurses union responded to Providence with another statement pointing out that all strike authorizations are decided through a vote by members of a bargaining unit.
"St. Vincent nurses made the difficult decision to authorize a strike to fight for their patients because they are clearly not a priority for Providence executives right now," according to the union.
