The fight for quality patient care has been the unwavering refrain of healthcare workers and their unions for years. So has the focus on building out a profession that can retain and develop safe staffing levels at the pace necessary to meet skyrocketing demand on our healthcare system. Healthcare professionals know that working conditions have been deteriorating for years – long before the COVID-19 pandemic – despite claims by healthcare employers that the recent exodus of registered nurses is largely from retirements. In fact, more recently we’ve seen many nurses under the age of 44 leaving the profession and nearly one in four healthcare workers were likely to leave their professions, according to a 2022 report published by AFT’s Healthcare Staffing Shortage Task Force.
So it should come as no surprise that these two themes have been proudly and boldly displayed on picket signs at every action taken by healthcare workers in recent years, including the most recent and historic strike at six Providence facilities in mid-June kicking off a hot labor summer. These concerns being raised by frontline workers have gotten much, much worse in recent years.
Here in Oregon, we continue to see some of the most inspirational, worker-led actions at healthcare institutions across the state – from postdoctoral researchers at OHSU fighting for their first contract to healthcare workers throughout the Providence system, to doctors and other advanced practice providers across healthcare systems organizing at a rapid pace, to behavioral health workers fighting for better standards in their industry, to countless classifications of workers raising a united voice for accountability, solidarity, and strength as OHSU and Legacy merge. This is providing inspiration and momentum for the entire Oregon labor movement.
Shop-floor actions and new organizing are helping to buoy legislative and political campaigns aimed at improving workplace conditions in healthcare too. It’s what gave healthcare workers and their unions enough power to pass the strongest safe staffing policy in the country in 2023. It’s what has inspired thousands of healthcare workers to form new unions just in the last few years. And it’s what’s giving other workers hope that they too can take on corporate giants by leading with compelling issues and using strategic campaigns…and win.
And if you need further evidence of yet another hot labor summer in 2024, take a look at Boeing workers – nearly 35,000 strong in the Pacific Northwest – gearing up for September 12, the day the IAM/Boeing contract will officially expire and the culmination of the first full-scale negotiation in 16 years. Or read about postdoctoral researchers at OHSU who organized their union with Oregon AFSCME last year and just recently declared impasse in negotiations after nearly a year of fighting for a fair contract and setting off an escalating campaign that could lead to a strike vote. Or learn about janitors and security officers in the Portland area represented by SEIU Local 49 who took on major contract campaigns at some of the biggest employers in the region and won strong contracts that were ratified in early July.
Across the state and across sectors, working people continue to be on the move – regardless of the odds – and they are changing the ballgame, and proving what we’ve always known: Your job is better in a union. Life is better in a union. And our democracy is stronger and more resilient when unions are strong and thriving.
As healthcare workers across Oregon continue to lead the way and inspire others to take a stand, let’s remind ourselves that there is nothing that can stop a united group of working class people – regardless of sector or specialty – not now, and not ever. See you in the streets!
