Thirteen Oregon hospitals and clinics in the Providence health care chain could shut down as early as next month if the nonprofit Catholic health system doesn’t settle contracts with the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) and Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association (PNHMA).
As of Dec. 3, units totaling nearly 5,000 ONA members and 70 PNHMA members had voted to authorize strikes at seven hospitals and six clinics run by Providence Health & Services. They could strike all at once or piecemeal, for a limited duration or open-ended, after giving a legally required 10-day notice. No strike dates had been set as of when this issue went to press Dec. 17.
The PNHMA members are physicians at Providence St. Vincent hospital who first unionized last year and are negotiating their first contract. The ONA members are registered nurses at six women’s clinics and seven hospitals:
- Providence St. Vincent
- Providence Milwaukie
- Providence Willamette Falls
- Providence Newberg
- Providence Hood River
- Providence Portland
- Providence Seaside
Nurses struck for three days in June at all of those except Providence Portland and then were locked out for two more days by Providence. They’re still without a new contract six months later.
“Over the last decade, frontline caregivers have lost a tremendous amount of autonomy, respect, and authority to best care for their patients and create a satisfying professional career,” ONA said in a press statement announcing the strike authorizations. “Instead, they have been forced into a corporate health care model that is causing moral injury and exhaustion.”
