Just days after 5,000 Providence nurses and doctors announced plans to strike, the health care organization says it wants to return to mediation with doctors and other advanced practitioners who are planning to walk out.
In a brief statement Thursday, Providence says it is prepared to weather a major statewide strike by nurses next week, but wants to return to bargaining with physicians “in the interest of community safety.”
Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, in Portland, Ore., Aug. 2, 2023.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
The Oregon Nurses Association called the indefinite strike across all eight of Providence’s hospitals in Oregon beginning Jan. 10. The union gave Providence the required 10 days' notice Monday.
The physicians and advanced practitioners are represented by the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association, a union that is affiliated by the American Federation of Teachers Healthcare and staffed by members of the Oregon Nurses Association.
The bargaining units singled out by Providence represent a small fraction of the overall striking workers — 150 out of nearly 5,000 planning to walk out.
They represent the first doctors planning to strike in recent state history.
Providence is seeking to reopen negotiations with 70 physicians and nurse practitioners at St. Vincent Medical Center. The providers are hospitalists who provide primary care to inpatients. They unionized in 2023 over concerns that they are required to care for more patients than is safe.
Providence is also seeking to reopen negotiations with 80 physicians, certified midwives and nurse practitioners working in six women’s clinics in the Portland metro area.
In a brief statement, Providence said it has recruited temporary nurses to meet close to 100% of its needs, but has struggled to do the same for the striking doctors.
“We call on those representing physician/provider groups to focus on mediation and put aside their planning for a walkout,” a Providence spokesperson wrote.
The nurses union called Providence’s statement disingenuous.
“Caregivers won’t be divided by these calculated moves, and no one should believe Providence’s shifting excuses,” a union spokesperson wrote.
Just hours before Providence sent its statement, the union accused the organization of violating labor laws by refusing to continue negotiations once the union delivered its strike notice.
Providence has, in the past, consistently refused to negotiate with the union during the 10-day period before a strike takes place. That’s drawn the ire of the union, which says other health systems, including Kaiser Permanente and St. Charles Bend, have averted strikes by continuing to negotiate in the final days.
Providence has repeatedly said its executives cannot spare the time to negotiate once a strike has been called due to the time it takes to recruit and onboard temporary workers.
“Are they too busy to negotiate? Are they not?” the nurses union spokesperson wrote. “They aren’t too busy to negotiate with the workers they can’t replace, but they are too busy to negotiate with the workers they claim they can?”
In an interview Monday, OPB asked Providence St. Vincent Chief Medical Officer Raymond Moreno if withdrawing from negotiations in the run-up to a strike was also a strategy to limit the power of the union.
“To me, it’s not a tactic, it’s a reality,” Moreno said. “I am focusing on, how do we do this if nobody shows up on the 10th.”