By Mike McInally for Oregon Capital Chronicle
Nearly 5,000 Providence Health & Systems nurses and other professionals walked off their jobs Friday in the largest strike by health workers in state history — and the first involving unionized doctors.
Picket lines formed in the early-morning hours outside Providence’s eight Oregon hospitals, while replacement workers started their shifts. Providence officials said they had completed the transition to the replacement workers by 6:35 a.m. Friday — 35 minutes after the 6 a.m. strike deadline. All Providence hospitals were open but the company has dialed back care, especially at St. Vincent Medical Center in southwest Portland, where Providence has stopped admitting patients from other facilities.
Nevertheless, Dr. Ben LeBlanc, Providence Oregon’s chief executive, said St. Vincent was “operating smoothly.”
About 70 doctors who work at the hospital were on strike along with 80 doctors, clinic nurses, midwives and nurse practitioners at Providence’s six women’s health clinics in the Portland area. The company has consolidated care at its women’s clinics in Gresham and Beaverton.
The women’s clinics and St. Vincent are the only sites where doctors are striking, and not all union-represented nurses walked off the job, said Gary Walker, spokesman for Providence. He said 600 showed up for work on Friday.
Politicians blast Providence
Top Democratic politicians in Oregon weighed in on the strike, with Gov. Tina Kotek calling Providence’s policy to stop negotiations when it receives a strike notice “short sighted and unhelpful.”
“Providence wasted 10 days when they could have been at the table making progress towards a comprehensive resolution of their labor dispute,” she said.
She urged the parties to “return to the table immediately to resolve their disagreements so normal operations and care can resume.”
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden also commented.
“The hard-working nurses, doctors & staff on strike today at Providence deserve a workplace that treats them like the health care heroes they are. That means fair wages, benefits & adequate staffing — things equally important to the patients they serve,” he said in a tweet.
Other Democratic politicians — U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, U.S. Reps. Suzanne Bonamici and Andrea Salinas and state Reps Rob Nosse and Travis Nelson, a nurse — announced plans for a Saturday rally at the Portland Convention Center in support of the union. The event was scheduled to include speeches from national labor leaders such as Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Liz Shuler, the national president of the AFL-CIO.
Providence officials said they stopped negotiations when the Oregon Nurses Association issued its strike notice on Dec. 30 to line up replacement workers.
“Each time we’ve had a strike, we’ve needed all 10 days to prepare our hospitals to care for the community from the moment our nurses walk out. And this time it’s even more complex, because the strike is larger and there is no replacement workforce for physicians,” officials said in a statement.
“Providence is preparing to continue bargaining,” the statement added. “First, we have to prioritize the stability of clinical operations.”
In a video released Friday, Anne Tan Piazza, the executive director of the union, said “the strike could end today, if Providence makes the right choice to invest in its caregivers in the ways that our members have been demanding.”
Normally, the union stages limited strikes but this action is open-ended and will continue until the two parties agree, the union said.
“Providence has rejected proposals to meet safe staffing standards, ignored requests for competitive wages and failed to address caregivers’ retention or burnout. This strike is on Providence, and I’m sorry if that makes Providence executives feel bad, but it is the truth,” she said.
At a Thursday press conference, union officials said Providence wages were not competitive with other health care entities in the area. They also have said they seek contract language that takes into account “acuity” — the level of intensive care that each patient requires.
They have accused Providence of trying to circumvent the state’s safe-staffing law, which is intended to establish safe nurse-to-patient ratios. In a Friday statement, Providence said the charge was “completely false.”
Providence officials say they have offered a 20% raise over the next three years for acute-care registered nurses, excluding overtime, holiday pay or other incentives. A contract offer for physicians proposes compensation increases and incentives that could exceed $20,000 to $30,000 a year, Providence said.
In addition to Portland’s St. Vincent and the women’s clinics in the Portland area, the health system operates the Providence Portland Medical Center and hospitals in Hood River, Medford, Milwaukie, Newberg, Seaside and Oregon City.
Mike McInally is a longtime reporter and editor who’s worked at the Corvallis Gazette-Times, the Albany Democrat-Herald and the Missoulian, in Missoula, Montana.
Related story: ‘Standing up for ourselves’: Providence Medford nurses join historic statewide strike (Jan. 10, 2025)
