Nurses at seven Providence hospitals in Oregon overwhelmingly voted down proposed labor contracts Friday, opting to continue a strike now in its fifth week.
Nurses at Providence Portland Medical Center, St. Vincent Medical Center, Providence Willamette Falls in Oregon City and hospitals in Milwaukie, Hood River, Seaside and Newberg rejected the proposal. A vote among striking nurses at Providence’s Medford hospital continues until 4 p.m. Saturday.
A vote by striking physicians at St. Vincent on whether to ratify their separate contract, meanwhile, had been scheduled to conclude by Friday but was extended by a day, according to a union spokesperson.
In a statement, the Oregon Nurses Association said 83% of voting members rejected the proposed contracts with a 92% participation rate. The labor union said it is “calling on Providence to get back to negotiations immediately.”
Each hospital’s labor agreement with Providence Health & Services needed separate approval from a majority of its union nurses. The final votes came in Friday afternoon, more than 28 days since nurses first took to the picket lines.
Providence said in a brief statement that it was “disappointed in the results.” The Catholic not-for-profit added that it would “explore next steps for these bargaining units with federal mediators and ONA.”
Roughly 5,000 nurses at all eight Providence hospitals in Oregon walked off the job early Jan. 10, beginning the largest health care strike in state history.
The walkout also notably included two groups of unionized physicians and advanced medical providers — 70 hospitalists and palliative care physicians at St. Vincent and roughly 80 doctors, midwives and advanced practitioners at six Providence women’s clinics in the Portland metro area. Once rare, doctors unions have grown more common in response to what doctors consider deteriorating conditions and growing corporate encroachment on the field of medicine.
Workers at the women’s clinics were the first to reach an agreement with the health system late Sunday deal. Those clinicians and nurses voted to ratify their contracts before returning to work on Thursday.
The striking nurses’ labor contracts with Providence have all expired, and some bargaining units had been negotiating for a new contract for months. Meanwhile, the St. Vincent hospitalists and the women’s clinics advanced providers had yet to establish their first labor contracts.
Key disputes in negotiations have centered on working conditions. Nurses have clashed with Providence management over the interpretation of the state’s new hospital staffing law in their contract. The striking doctors, meanwhile, have pushed for limits on hospital admissions when patient loads become unmanageable.
Nurses had also pushed for pay raises to apply retroactively to when their last contract expired. Nurses at St. Vincent and Willamette Falls, for example, have been working under an expired contract since December 2023.
They also expressed frustrations with their health benefits, citing difficulties accessing their usual providers and prescription refills. Nurses say these challenges began after Providence switched to Aetna as the administrator of its employee health plans this year.
Negotiators for Providence and the health worker unions began meeting face to face last week, for the first time since the strike began, at the urging of Gov. Tina Kotek. Before then, bargaining teams had been exchanging written contract proposals.
Kotek met with leaders of the hospital system and the unions had urged them to strike a deal to resolve the strike by last Friday, union officials said, and while that deadline came and went without a deal, the intervention appeared to mark a shift in the dispute as both sides turned their attention to around-the-clock bargaining sessions.
The Oregon Nurses Association and Providence jointly announced a tentative agreement late Tuesday. It was said to include wage increases, penalty pay for missed meals and breaks, and provisions intended to codify a state hospital staffing law.
But some nurses soon voiced strong opposition to the tentative agreement, arguing that it failed to adequately address chronic understaffing, patient safety concerns and demands for fair wages and benefits.
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