Kotek’s Proposal To End Strike: Providence Health And Striking Workers Agree To In-Person Talks

After Governor Tina Kotek urged striking healthcare workers to end the strike, Providence Health Oregon and the unions representing striking healthcare workers said yesterday that in-person talks would resume.

The walkout includes staff at all eight Providence hospitals in the state.

Although Providence Health reached an agreement with ONA for the Medford Emergency Department earlier this month, the scope is limited. Frontline healthcare workers at Providence, Oregon, including around 5,000 nurses and 150 physicians, midwives, and advanced practitioners, went on strike about three weeks ago.

Several issues have led to the strike, and some unresolved issues are:

• No agreement has been reached on wages: While Providence has offered a 20% increase, nurses with expired contracts of over a year want the increase to apply retrospectively, and obstetrics staff at St Vincent’s want their night differential pay and bonus pay for extra shifts to be increased to the same level as other hospitals.
• At Providence Women’s Clinic, which has six locations in the Portland metro area, Nurses and doctors want Providence to increase staffing and say they are responsible for more patients than they can safely handle.
• The Pacific Northwest Hospital Medical Association, representing 70 St Vincent hospitalists and palliative care doctors, seeks protections against outsourcing services.

Providence and the bargaining units exchanged written contract proposals for the first in-person meeting since the strike began on January 10.