Providence health care workers go on strike | The Story | Jan. 10, 2025

Jan. 10 on The Story: Friday morning marked the beginning of a historic strike in Oregon. About 5,000 health care workers, including both nurses and physicians, left some 14 Providence facilities and hit the picket lines. The union representing these workers, the Oregon Nurses Association, said it's the largest health care worker strike in history and the first to feature doctors. Tonight on The Story, we talk to some of those striking health care workers and hear from both Providence administrators and lawmakers for their perspectives on this labor dispute.

[leeshavaden]

There are soooo many things said by Jennifer Burrows that are either not true or they are partial truths! It’s not the whole picture.
1) PTO: Providence took away our “Extended Illness” time off a few years ago. There were caregivers that had accrued hundreds of hours and they lost them without a suitable replacement. So what Ms. Burrows does NOT mention is that PTO hours for us includes vacation time, sick time, and mandatory low census hours. Kaiser for example don’t get called off for low census mandatorily. We have been negotiating for over a year and they haven’t countered PTO accrual at all-they’re flat just saying no.
2) ratification bonus of $5000. We are asking for retro pay. So for the raise that we should have gotten in January 2024 we would be paid back pay for those hours worked. Providence is offering a tier bonus. It is based on seniority. $5000 is the max. For new nurses it’s $1000. That’s absolutely not fair. You have new nurses that have worked just as hard as everyone else. They should be paid for time worked. Providence has drawn out these negotiations and we have all been without raises.
3) staffing. The law was meant to be a ceiling/cap on nurse/ patient ratios. Providence has taken this as an opportunity to increase the staffing ratios on some instances. National nursing associations recommend staffing based on acuity. So for example in ICU we have always had 1:1 criteria in our staffing plans (neurologically unstable patients requiring every 15 minute assessments, patients who are medically paralyzed, patients being stabilized after cardiac arrest, etc). In our staffing plans since the implementation of the law providence doesn’t want us to include 1:1 criteria or mention our developed acuity tools. There are also CNA caps. So instead of hiring/having more CNAs they will just say okay only some of your patients have an assigned CNA.
4) Insurance. Aetna just took over all of our benefits. Providence said that nothing would change about the costs. Caregivers are finding that their specialists are now out of network, medications aren’t covered, etc. we are asking for lower deductibles and out of patient max limits. Again providence is unwilling to counter our proposal and are just saying “no”.
5) wages: providence is not offering 20%. What they are offering us still puts us under what OHSU nurses are being paid. If we want to be able to attract and retain nurses we have to be in the ballpark of what they are being paid.

Employees used to have low deductibles. There used to be a pension. Year by year they slowly eliminate benefits and increase our costs. We are putting our foot down. No more.

[annmarie]

Wake up people. You have no idea what is going on. How long can they keep paying those travel nurses. And by the way how are the managers training new nurses, telling them where the supplies are while an emergency is going on. The system is falling in.

[AuraRay-lh]

Way to give a one sided perspective that doesn't actually give insight into the real situation. If the news is going to do a story they should talk to both sides

[gdevin]

So Providence was trying to say the 10 days weren’t wasted because they were used to train nurses? In what world would the people that were training nurses be the same people that would be negotiating with the union?? The two things have nothing to do with eachother, make it make sense 🤯

[leeshavaden]

There are soooo many things said by Jennifer Burrows that are either not true or they are partial truths! It’s not the whole picture.
1) PTO: Providence took away our “Extended Illness” time off a few years ago. There were caregivers that had accrued hundreds of hours and they lost them without a suitable replacement. So what Ms. Burrows does NOT mention is that PTO hours for us includes vacation time, sick time, and mandatory low census hours. Kaiser for example don’t get called off for low census mandatorily. We have been negotiating for over a year and they haven’t countered PTO accrual at all-they’re flat just saying no.
2) ratification bonus of $5000. We are asking for retro pay. So for the raise that we should have gotten in January 2024 we would be paid back pay for those hours worked. Providence is offering a tier bonus. It is based on seniority. $5000 is the max. For new nurses it’s $1000. That’s absolutely not fair. You have new nurses that have worked just as hard as everyone else. They should be paid for time worked. Providence has drawn out these negotiations and we have all been without raises.
3) staffing. The law was meant to be a ceiling/cap on nurse/ patient ratios. Providence has taken this as an opportunity to increase the staffing ratios on some instances. National nursing associations recommend staffing based on acuity. So for example in ICU we have always had 1:1 criteria in our staffing plans (neurologically unstable patients requiring every 15 minute assessments, patients who are medically paralyzed, patients being stabilized after cardiac arrest, etc). In our staffing plans since the implementation of the law providence doesn’t want us to include 1:1 criteria or mention our developed acuity tools. There are also CNA caps. So instead of hiring/having more CNAs they will just say okay only some of your patients have an assigned CNA.
4) Insurance. Aetna just took over all of our benefits. Providence said that nothing would change about the costs. Caregivers are finding that their specialists are now out of network, medications aren’t covered, etc. we are asking for lower deductibles and out of patient max limits. Again providence is unwilling to counter our proposal and are just saying “no”.
5) wages: providence is not offering 20%. What they are offering us still puts us under what OHSU nurses are being paid. If we want to be able to attract and retain nurses we have to be in the ballpark of what they are being paid.

Employees used to have low deductibles. There used to be a pension. Year by year they slowly eliminate benefits and increase our costs. We are putting our foot down. No more.

Also, don’t tell me that the lawyers, mediators, business people are the ones training replacement workers. The middle managers are the ones who have cots set up in their offices and are running on fumes trying to hold things together. You’re going to lose so many managers.