A fraught dispute over employment practices at the Bend hospital cooled this week, as St. Charles Health System agreed to a first-time union contract with about 150 health-care workers who launched a strike last month.
The walkout forced the hospital to hire temporary medical technicians, technologists and therapists for 11 days, as nurses and a surgeon spoke out publicly about negative effects on patient care. After union members ratified a contract Wednesday, their organizers celebrated “a new stage of labor peace and partnership with the hospital,” according to a statement from the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals.
But a day after the workers ratified the contract, the union and the hospital put out conflicting messages about their agreement.
To radiation therapist Beatrice Redding-Walczyk, a member of the union’s bargaining team, the contract signals “a little bit of forced respect.”
“St. Charles can’t do whatever they want with us anymore, schedule-wise and with how they reprimand us. I feel like they finally have to almost treat us as equals,” she said.
Supporters of a union for medical technical workers picket the St. Charles Bend hospital on March 4, 2021.
Emily Cureton Cook
Union organizers say the contract will raise wages for Bend medical technical workers by as much as 25%, depending on each specific job. A draft of the agreement shows it locks in wage formulas for the next three years. There’s also a provision for employees to request wage auditing, which union external organizer Sam Potter says will help experienced workers negotiate for tenure-based compensation, while identifying and eliminating gender pay disparities.
OFNHP spokesperson Shane Burley claims an examination of the worker wages revealed gender pay disparities, where men are making more money than women for the same jobs.
“This allegation is completely false,” responded St. Charles spokesperson Lisa Goodman. “We regularly review our compensation structure to ensure there is gender equity in pay. We are frankly outraged by this disparaging claim.”
In a written statement, St. Charles officials said that, on average, the workers will see an 11% pay bump, about half what the union applauded. The statement claims the union didn’t secure anything that non-unionized workers don’t already enjoy.
“The contract provides general wage increases and market adjustments for the first year that will bring the technical caregivers to the same wage level as St. Charles techs at other campuses,” according to a written statement from the health system.
After the medical technical workers in Bend voted to form a union in 2019, the hospital system began to raise pay for the same positions at its other locations, where medical technical workers remained non-unionized.
“During bargaining, the Bend techs missed out on a potential of four wage and market increases that others have received since the fall of 2019,” St. Charles wrote in its statement.
The health system called the strike a no-win move.
“The wage proposal that was ratified by yesterday’s vote is the same proposal St. Charles put on the bargaining table before the technical caregivers went out on strike,” St. Charles director of human resources Hillary Forrest said in the health system’s statement.
“That is simply not true,” Potter said, citing the wage audit provision as one example.
A hospital spokesperson declined to provide a copy of the pre-strike proposal, citing confidentiality agreements.
St. Charles is a private, not-for-profit corporation and is the largest employer in Central Oregon, with more than 4,500 employees, according to the health system.
Its latest conflict with employees reverberated nationally, as more health-care workers have turned to unions to try and improve working conditions, according to NPR.
OFNHP is an affiliate of the 1.7 million member American Federation of Teachers. AFT President Randi Weingarten is scheduled to make a celebratory trip to Bend next week.
“This contract proves, once again, that when you come together as a union you can accomplish what isn’t possible alone,” Weingarten said in a statement.