Oregon Nurses End 46-Day Strike with Pay and Staffing Agreements

After 46 days on the picket line, nurses walked back into eight Providence hospitals across Oregon in good spirits after ratifying a new contract with their employer February 26. Their effort was bolstered by striking doctors, nurse practitioners, and other hospitalists at Providence St. Vincent’s, and doctors, nurses, and midwives at the Providence Women’s Clinics.

The agreements for the 5,000 nurses, who are represented by Oregon Nurses Association (ONA), include improvements in staffing language, pay raises, and pay for missed meals or breaks during a shift. They had rejected a proposal in early February, voting to stay on strike.

While nurses won language on further discussion with their employer on health insurance, they did not win a return to the previous coverage that most workers had wanted.

“We’re pretty ecstatic that we’re going back to work,” said Vicki Knudsen, nurse at Providence Medford. “We have a very feisty group down here. I think we became really unified. A lot of new friendships developed inside the bargaining unit and between the bargaining units.”

STAFFING PLANS

“We did get Providence to move a fair amount,” said Kathy Keane, cardiology nurse at Providence St. Vincent’s. “There was compromise on both sides of the table, which never feels great, but that’s the nature of bargaining.” Nurses had hoped to get aligned contract expiration dates at all eight units. While they did not achieve that goal, they were able to get six contracts with the same expiration date.

Improved staffing was a major issue with nurses alleging that Providence management routinely tries to skirt Oregon’s nurse-to-patient ratio law. The staffing language varies across the units to address different patient populations.

“All of our staffing plans need to be driven by patient acuity and intensity,” said Richard Botterill, emergency room nurse at Providence Portland. Acuity refers to the severity of a patient’s illness, or how much attention they will need. “The fact that we got it into the contract is a big deal.”

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Meanwhile at Medford, nurses will approve the staffing plan at the unit level by majority vote of the nurses on the unit before it goes to the hospital’s staffing committee. At Seaside, they won a commitment to acknowledge that the acuity of patients is important in the staffing process. “It’s wild that we have to get them to acknowledge that,” said Seaside nurse Nathan Weiler.

Nurses at Medford are among six bargaining units that will receive bonuses to make up for missed raises for time worked since their previous contracts expired. This had not been offered in prior tentative agreements. Those working at two hospitals where contracts expired at the end of 2024 will not receive retroactive pay because they did not work without a contract for very long before the strike began.

UNION WINS ELECTIONS

Over the course of the strike, ONA announced victories in union elections at three other Oregon hospitals, showing 2300 additional Oregon nurses are happy to be part of a militant, striking union. “We’re paying it forward to the unions coming after us,” said Botterill. “We’re strengthening our union, and growing our union.”

“There are a lot of mixed emotions,” said nurse Kim Martin from Providence Portland. “People are looking forward to going back to work, but there’s disappointment that we didn’t achieve what we wanted to with the sacrifices nurses made, being out on the line this long.”

Martin said that Providence had a plan. “They were soliciting this strike. They had a budget for millions and millions of dollars. To that end, I think the nurses foiled their plan. I think they expected to have lots of nurses going back through the doors but the nurses held strong.”

MORE UNITY NOW

The workers walked out on January 10. The bargaining units at the Women’s Clinics ratified a first contract on February 4 and began to return to work February 8. The St. Vincent’s hospitalists ratified their first contract on February 8, but Providence included language in the agreement that allowed these doctors and nurse practitioners to continue to honor the nurses’ picket lines as long as the strike continued.

Nurses at all eight hospitals rejected a previous tentative agreement on February 7 and 8, and most hospitalists continued to honor the picket.

Picket lines remained strong. However Providence threatened to end health insurance for striking workers at the end of February. Several nurses expressed concern that if this tentative agreement had not been approved, some nurses might have crossed the picket lines to retain their health insurance. Others worried about what would happen if some units approved the tentative agreement while others did not. “We didn’t want to break our coalition and have any units split,” said Martin.

“We have more unity now across bargaining units than we’ve ever had,” said Keane.

“Providence said they don’t have money, but they spent an irrational amount of money to extend the strike. They could have settled these contracts before we ever went to the sidewalks,” said Martin. ”They were intent on showing the nurses whose boss. The nurses showed them they have a lot of passion, commitment and strength to fight for fair staffing and wages.

“They thought nurses were going to come rolling back over the line and they did not. We held strong for a long time,” said Martin.