Negotiators for Providence and its striking nurses have not met since the two sides reached an ill-fated agreement a week ago, and they have no meetings on the books.
Nearly 5,000 nurses at all eight Providence hospitals in Oregon last week rejected a tentative agreement reached between the health system and their labor union, the Oregon Nurses Association, extending a strike that began Jan. 10 and is now in its fifth week.
The rejected deal included wage increases, a one-hour penalty pay for missed meals and breaks, and provisions intended to codify language from a state hospital staffing law. It also offered a ratification bonus based on hours worked since a nurse’s last contract expired instead of retroactive pay raises.
Nurses had criticized the deal, arguing that it failed to adequately address chronic understaffing, patient safety concerns and demands for fair wages and benefits. Nurses also raised frustrations over their health benefits, citing difficulties accessing regular providers after Providence switched to Aetna for employee health plans this year.
They ultimately rejected the proposal by a wide margin. The union didn’t release a breakdown by hospital but said that, at the seven locations that voted first, 83% of nurses voted no.
“Providence’s proposals fail to adequately address these critical issues, which have contributed to ongoing burnout, understaffing, and wage inequities across their facilities,” the Oregon Nurses Association said in a statement.
Providence said it was disappointed in the results and that its bargaining teams are “considering next steps and are working with the federal mediators to determine the appropriate time to return to bargaining.”
The vote illustrates how far apart Providence and its nurses remain. And it sets them back to where things stood two weeks ago, when the two sides were exchanging written contract proposals but not meeting directly, either by video conference or in person.
Leaders from Providence and the union only began meeting face to face after Gov. Tina Kotek intervened and urged both parties to return to the bargaining table to end the strike. That set off more than a week of round-the-clock mediation sessions that went late into the nights. News of last Tuesday’s tentative deal didn’t emerge until after 10 p.m.
Two groups that joined in the strike have hammered out and ratified new agreements with Providence.
Eighty workers at Providence’s six Portland-area women’s clinics were the first to reach an agreement with the health system. They returned to work last Thursday after ratifying their first-ever labor contract.
Meanwhile, about 70 hospitalists and palliative care doctors at St. Vincent Medical Center, who are represented by the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association, also approved their first ever labor agreement with Providence in a vote that wrapped up Saturday.
But the deal stipulates that they won’t return to work until striking nurses from the same hospital ratify their own deal. As a result, the hospital physicians remain off the job.
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