Providence Medford chief executive calls latest contract offer ‘very generous’; statewide, 5,000 healthcare workers walk the picket lines

By James Sloan, Rogue Valley Times

Bundled up and bearing bright-green signs, dozens of nurses gathered outside Providence Medford Medical Center Friday morning to begin their open-ended strike advocating for better pay, safe staffing and more adequate health insurance benefits.

Receiving honks of support from passing drivers, the nurses — about 380 at the Medford hospital — are making history with the biggest strike of its kind in Oregon history. Nearly 5,000 nurses, doctors and advanced practitioners represented by the Oregon Nurses Association union joined strike lines around the state in the early morning hours.

“We’re out here on the picket line honestly standing up for ourselves and standing up for safe staffing, patient care, to be valued and to be heard,” said Breanna Zabel, a registered nurse with Providence and co-chair of the nurse staffing committee with ONA. “We wish we were not on strike but sometimes you can do everything possible to try and settle a contract but it takes two to bargain.”

The strike began at 7 a.m. Friday following a 10-day notice of the planned action issued Dec. 30 by the union after months of negotiations between representatives from the hospital and ONA with minimal progress.

“I will say ahead of the strike notice, we put a proposal out there to ONA, and instead of a response, we received the strike notice,” said Christopher Pizzi, chief executive at Providence, the day before the strike began.

The most recent proposal included a $20,000 year-one raise for nurses, mandates on nurse-to-patient ratios in accordance with House Bill 2697 passed in 2023 and other incentives.

The offer is “very generous, and for us, economically it has to be sustainable,” Pizzi said. “This is what’s on the table and we hope ONA accepts that proposal.”

That outcome appeared in doubt Friday when listening to comments from striking workers who stood outside Providence in Medford holding signs in the rain.

“They are more focused on profits than patient care; they have spent time listening to their C-suite executives instead of the people on the front lines of healthcare who understand healthcare the most and understand how to make healthcare work,” said Peter Starzynski, deputy director of communications for ONA.

“Providence is a $30 billion corporation — billion with a ‘B’ — and their CEO last year made $12 million and they don’t want to offer competitive wages to nurses? It’s absurd.”

Nurses in Medford have been without a contract since March 2024.

A key aspect of the contract nurses and caregivers are demanding to include is lower costs for their own healthcare coverage.

“We are asking for a fair and just contract that includes paid time off and lower healthcare costs; some of us are paying $6,300 in deductibles — that is exorbitant — we have the highest healthcare costs in the state for nurses and it’s the employer’s own insurance,” said Vicki Knudsen, executive committee chair for Providence Medford Medical Center ONA.

“It’s ridiculous that we have to follow the same policies and procedures that every other Providence hospital does, and yet they pay us the lowest. We are the lowest paid nurses in the state right now.”

With close to 400 nurses and caregivers on strike locally, the hospital has onboarded replacement workers to ensure patients are safe and there are no interruptions to medical care.

“We don’t anticipate any disruption to appointments for care providers, patients and families,” Pizzi said. “We have some experienced nurses and health systems; many were here last summer for Providence Medford.”

Providence Medford nurses held a three-day strike in June amid unsuccessful contract negotiations.

While the hospital has taken measures to limit disruptions to those seeking medical care in Medford, Sen. Ron Wyden and Gov. Tina Kotek expressed frustration toward Providence for the lack of a mutually agreed upon contract.

“Providence wasted 10 days when they could have been at the table making progress towards a comprehensive resolution of their labor dispute. We must take care of the people who take care of Oregonians — all hospital staff deserve a fair contract,” Kotek said in a statement Friday.

“Oregonians are already experiencing disruptions to care. All parties must return to the table immediately to resolve their disagreements so normal operations and care can resume.”

Providence responded to Kotek’s statement with its own statement: “Providence has spent the last 10 days recruiting and preparing 2,000 temporary replacement nurses to care for more than 5,500 patients served by our eight hospitals every day,” the statement said. “We take our responsibility to maintain hospital operations seriously. 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.

“We heard from the governor and share her sense of urgency to get back to the table,” the statement concluded. “Providence is preparing to continue bargaining. First, we have to prioritize the stability of clinical operations.”

Wyden, in his response to the strike, said, “The hard-working nurses, doctors and staff on strike today at Providence deserve a workplace that treats them like the healthcare heroes they are. That means fair wages, benefits and adequate staffing — things equally important to the patients they serve.”

At Friday morning’s strike, along East McAndrews Road and Crater Lake Avenue outside the hospital, nurses and staff expressed gratitude toward the support received from the local community.

“We have seen so much support from the community and that has been incredible. I think that has lifted a lot of us up,” Zabel said.

“There’s not a single nurse out here that wants to be out here; we would rather be inside taking care of our patients,” Knudsen said. “But the solidarity out here is amazing; these nurses being out here in 30- and 40-degree weather.”

Looking forward, there is no set date for when the strike will end.

“This is an open-ended strike, meaning ONA members will be here until Providence starts hearing their voices,” Starzynski said.

Hospitals included in the strike are Providence Medford, Providence Portland, Providence Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Providence Milwaukie, Providence Hood River, Providence Seaside, St. Vincent Medical Center and Providence Newberg.

Providence and ONA, which represents the nurses and other frontline health workers, have not reached agreement on contracts spanning multiple bargaining unit. The union said patients who need medical care should not delay going to a hospital or medical clinic even during the strike. Seeking medical care is not considered crossing the picket line, the union said.

Providence said it has proposed a 20% pay raise for nurses over the next three years, excluding overtime, holiday pay and incentives, The Oregonian/oregonlive.com reported. The health system said it has also offered up to $5,000 signing bonuses to sign the new contract.

But the union says that the dispute also has to do with the persistent staffing shortages that have plagued hospitals and the broader health care system since the COVID-19 pandemic, the news outlet reported.

“The issue at hand is not just about pay,” Gina Ottinger, a registered nurse at Providence St. Vincent, said at a news conference Thursday, which was livestreamed on Facebook. “It’s about staffing, employee health care, patient care and overall working conditions.”

Ottinger said Providence management has not taken into account the complexity of patient care and the growing demands to care for more patients than nurses deem safe or reasonable.

Meanwhile, the striking doctors and advanced practitioners at Providence St. Vincent and the women’s clinics want Providence to address chronic staffing levels by limiting the number of hospital admissions when patient numbers exceed what doctors can reasonably manage, oregonlive.com reported.

Reach reporter James Sloan at [email protected]. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.