Nurses at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Home Care Services in Springfield ratified an employer contract offer May 13, two and a half months after they waged a two-week strike in which the employer deployed strikebreakers.
The new collective bargaining agreement increases wages up to 16% over four years — an increase from PeaceHealth’s pre-strike offer of 14.75%. And it raises pay for nurses with advanced degrees and skills.
But it also fails to deliver the central demand of the strike: to be paid the same as in-hospital nurses at PeaceHealth. The roughly 90 members of Oregon Nurses Association’s Springfield bargaining unit provide hospital-quality care directly to patients’ homes, often in their dying days. But they’re paid less than nurses at every other PeaceHealth hospital and home care service, ONA says.
