Providence Workers Demand Systemwide Talks as Strike Enters Day 3

PORTLAND, Ore. — Providence health care workers criticized the hospital system’s decision to prioritize negotiations with smaller facilities as a strike entered its third day Sunday. The workers are demanding systemwide improvements in staffing, wages and benefits.

Providence announced plans to restart negotiations with federal mediators at its Medford and Newberg locations, drawing criticism from workers at larger facilities like Providence Portland and St. Vincent Medical Center. “It feels like gaslighting honestly, and it feels like a very calculated division designed to separate the larger population hospitals from the smaller population hospitals,” said Daniel Taylor, an acute care RN at St. Vincent.

Taylor emphasized the need for comprehensive improvements: “What we need is for all of us to get a retirement package we can use and benefits package overall that allows us to keep staff from going to other hospital systems.”

Jennifer Burrows, chief executive of Providence Oregon, defended the decision during a Saturday press conference, citing progress made before the work stoppage. “I think we’re feeling at those two tables specifically, we had resolved a lot of the differences prior to this work stoppage,” Burrows said.

Dr. Shirley Fox, an OB hospitalist at St. Vincent Medical Center, described deteriorating conditions: “This is our second home. We spend so many hours of our lives working with our nurses, and we know them personally. This is really a family that we’ve worked on and what I’ve seen over the last few years is Providence has become more of a business rather than a family in terms of a workplace.”

Workers emphasized that state staffing requirements aren’t sufficient. “The state staffing law’s designed to be a bare minimum standard, not the standard of care of excellence that we’re all striving to provide,” Taylor said. “If you have more patients that are sicker with less nurses, every patient suffers to some extent and that’s a big part of why we’re out here.”

Providence issued a full statement Sunday addressing operations and negotiations: “All eight Providence hospitals in Oregon report health care operations are going well. We’re receiving many expressions of gratitude from patients for both our Providence nurses and caregivers who are choosing to work, and for some 2,000 temporary replacement workers.”

No dates have been set for resuming negotiations at any location. Providence has not disclosed strike-related costs.