Providence nurses on 3-day strike in largest such event in Oregon history

Nurses in six Providence hospitals around Oregon are taking the unusual tact of going on a three-day strike at the same time. It’s the largest such nursing strike in Oregon history. Each of the six different bargaining units are negotiating with their employer separately but they say their issues are similar across the board: staffing ratios and levels, benefits and overall compensation. Our guests are Anne Tan Piazza, executive director of the Oregon Nurses Association and Jennifer Gentry, chief nursing officer with Providence.

Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller:  This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The largest nurses strike in Oregon history started this morning. It’s made up of more than 3,000 nurses who work at six Providence hospitals around the state in Washington County, Oregon City, Milwaukee, Newberg, Hood River and Medford. The nurses union and hospital administrators are stuck on a number of issues including wages and differing interpretations of a new hospital staffing law. This is Denise Arnold, a registered nurse in the ICU at Providence’s Newberg hospital:

Denise Arnold [recording]:  Patients deserve to have good care when they go and they deserve to have some of their nurses at least be experienced. And with the conditions at Newberg that we’ve had where we’re making $6 less an hour than Saint V [St. Vincent Medical Center], for almost three years now, we’ve gutted out our experienced. And then you add the staffing issue on top of it and I’m not sure that we’re going to have people to care for our community at the level they need anymore.

Miller:  The strike is scheduled to end Friday morning. Replacement workers have been brought in. We’re going to hear from a hospital representative in a few minutes. We start with Anne Tan Piazza. She is the executive director of the Oregon Nurses Association. Welcome to the show.

Anne Tan Piazza:  Good afternoon, Dave.

Miller:  How did you make the decision to strike?

Piazza:  Striking is not a decision that our nurses take lightly, but in this case, our nurses believe it is necessary to create a healthier, safer and better health care system for all Oregonians. What our nurses are simply asking for are the tools, the resources and the support that we need to save lives and to provide the care that our patients deserve.

Miller:  What are you pushing for in terms of pay?

Piazza:  In terms of wages, our nurses deserve competitive market wages so that Providence can continue to recruit and retain the best nurses. Providence’s latest wage offer leaves nurses at Providence Saint Vincent’s, for example, more than $6,000 behind their colleagues at OHSU, and leaves experienced nurses more than $20,000 behind. We are asking for market competitiveness because we know it is one of many factors that can help alleviate the workforce shortage.

Miller:  What is your ask in terms of health care coverage?

Piazza:  Providence insurance can cost as much as $6,000 more than a Kaiser nurse on a family plan. But yet Providence has, so far, refused to discuss any improvements to its health care benefits. What we are asking for is better health benefits so that our nurses can care for themselves and their families.

Miller:  One of the big sticking points has to do with the implementation that just happened, most of it at the beginning of this month, of the new statewide health care staffing law. We don’t have the time now to get into all the nitty gritty. It’s actually quite a complicated issue. But can you give us a short version of your argument?

Piazza:  Providence is breaking our new safe staffing law and patients are the ones paying the price. Providence administrator’s reprehensible short staffing puts Oregonians health at risk long before the pandemic and it’s only gotten worse. What our nurses are demanding in bargaining is for Providence to comply with the new safe staffing law so that nurses and management can come together and vote on a staffing plan.

Miller:  A week and a half ago, a Providence spokesperson shared a text with the Lund Report that someone in your union had sent to members. It said that the bargaining team declared a three day strike, “with the goal of creating the most cost for Providence.” I’m going to read the rest of the text verbatim. “We know that scab contracts last five days, our ends will return to work June 21st at 6 a.m. If Providence chooses to lock us out for two days in order to save money, we will shame them in the press.” How is that tactic working out for you so far?

Piazza:  Providence should be ashamed. It is no longer run by the nuns. Providence executives are ignoring our staffing law, endangering patients, and disrespecting our nurses. We have been trying to reason with Providence for over nine months, in some of our bargaining units, and we’re still not close to agreement. We much prefer a fair agreement. And ONA [Oregon Nurses Association] has called on our nurses and other labor unions to honor the strike and not cross the picket line. That is a standard practice for all unions throughout the American labor movement and Providence knows this.

Miller:  Anne Tan Piazza, thanks very much.

Piazza:  Thank you.

Miller:  Jennifer Gentry joins us now for another perspective. She is the chief nursing officer for Providence Central Division. Jennifer Gentry, welcome.

Jennifer Gentry:  Thank you.

Miller:  What’s your response, first, to the wage and health care cost arguments that we just heard?

Gentry:  Providence is committed to offering market competitive wages for our nurses. We absolutely agree that they deserve those wages. We’ve offered over, on average, 10% increase in the first year and, on average, 18% increase over the three year contract. A typical nurse is earning more than $100,000 a year. And those increases would be on top of that.

Miller:  That’s for wages. What about health care?

Gentry:  Province is committed to offering competitive health care as well. We cover about 82% of the cost of health care for all of our employees. All of our employees get the same healthcare benefit. The industry average is only about 72%. And we offer multiple plans so that each individual can choose the plan that is best for them and most meets their needs. I also think it’s important to note that comparing us to Kaiser is not apples to apples. It’s a very different type of system. It’s a closed network and it’s just not comparable.

Miller:  I want to turn to the issue of hospital staffing and play some tape for you. This is Denise Arnold again. She is a registered nurse at Providence’s Newberg Hospital.

Arnold [recording]:  It has created kind of the feeling back in COVID where you want to be able to provide care to these patients and they need it, and you know they need it. But you don’t have the time. And nurses aren’t lazy. Most of us will go a whole shift without peeing or eating or taking a single break if needed. Because that’s what we’re there for, is to help people. But that can’t be the daily game plan and that’s essentially what Providence has turned it into.

Miller:  So Jennifer Gentry, there are two arguments here. One that we just heard in the tape [that] the way the hospital system has responded to the staffing law, is making conditions unsafe for patients. Then there’s also a legal argument that the Oregon Nurses Association brought up just now, and that they’ve brought up obviously, as you know, in recent weeks, saying that you’re actually going against the law. I’d like to give you a chance to respond to both of those points that are related but also separate.

Gentry:  Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll start with the ratio and the comments there. First, I think it’s important that we keep in mind that these ratios that are mandated in the law are the same law that ONA helped to write. They declared a major victory when this law was passed. And when we develop staffing plans, our staffing plans are exactly as the law requires for our mandated nurse-to-patient ratios. And just as a reminder, these are the same ratios that California has had mandated for decades.

I think the other piece, as far as wanting to change that … it’s important that union leaders understand that if they want to change that law, if they’re not happy with the way the law is written today, then we need to go back to the legislature. And we need to figure that out together, as we did when we wrote the law as the Coalition. And so Providence can’t make changes to the law and we’re going to follow the law, which does include meal and break coverage for all of our nurses.

Miller:  What is your plan for Friday when the striking nurses say they want to return to work?

Gentry:  So our replacement period ends on Sunday morning, the 23rd. So we will be looking closely at who’s scheduled for Friday and who has been replaced. And any nurse that has not been replaced, we’ll be in contact with on Thursday to let them know that we are expecting them to return to work. Any nurse that has not been replaced, we expect them to come back to work on Sunday morning.

Miller:  Just so I understand – meaning, if a nurse has been replaced by a traveling nurse or a temporary nurse, those contracts are for five days. And you’re going to make sure that they work for those five days. As opposed to, in a sense paying double, paying for the traveling nurse to hang out in a hotel room while the regular full time nurse goes back to work. That’s not what you’re going to do?

Gentry:  When we negotiate, when we contract with the replacement nursing workforce, those contracts state that these nurses will work for five days. It is a full replacement period. We can’t contract for fewer days than that. So when we commit to them that they’ll work for a full five days, that’s what’s necessary in order to ensure we have enough nurses to take care of our patients and to take care of this community while our nurses strike.

Miller:  I just want to make sure I understand you. The contract says you have to pay them for five days. What if you pay them for five days but you only have them work for three?

Gentry:  We’re gonna stick by our commitment for them to work for the five days. That’s the process that we follow in Providence. And as I said, ONA knows this. They know it’s a full five days. It was a full five days last year. It’s very clear, in some of the messaging that they’ve made, that they understand it’s a five day replacement period. And that’s the process we’ll follow. Now at the end of the strike, as I said, we’ll evaluate what the needs are and we’ll bring nurses back as scheduled, based on that situation at the time.

Miller:  Once the strike was announced, Providence said that you would not be negotiating with the union because you needed to focus on strike plans for patient safety, things like hiring the temporary nurses that we were just talking about. But Providence is an enormous healthcare system. On your website it notes that you operate 51 hospitals and 1,000 clinics across the west. Why can’t you do two things at once? Continue negotiating these long-term contracts and make some local temporary staffing decisions at the same time?

Gentry:  Well, as I’m sure you can imagine it’s a very complex process to ensure that we’re able to maintain operations while nurses go on strike across six hospitals. And it’s important to remember that Oregon is not part of the Nurse Compact. So any nurse who’s doing work in the State of Oregon has to have an Oregon license which limits me from pulling resources. And our focus has to be on ensuring that our patients get the same excellent care that they’re used to. So that’s why we shift our focus.

Miller:  It’s the same people at the bargain table for the long-term contracts who are making the temporary staffing decisions?

Gentry:  Yeah, our chief nursing officers at each of our hospitals, including some of the nurse leaders in every hospital are on the bargaining teams, they’re the ones negotiating the contract for the nurses. They’re also the same ones that ensure that hospital operations and patient care are moving as they’re supposed to be. So we have to use those resources to shift our focus to prepare for the transition, which is very complex. And make sure that our doors stay open for our community.

Miller:  Jennifer Gentry, thanks very much.

Gentry:  You’re welcome.

Miller:  Jennifer Gentry is the chief nursing officer for Providence Central Division.

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