St. Charles Bend nurses hold strike authorization vote; hospital defends ‘good faith’ bargaining, refutes union claims
(Update: Hospital issues statement, says 6 more bargaining dates set))
Six-day voting period by nearly 1,000 nurses ends Sunday; hospital may seek federal mediator
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- After more than five months of contract talks, nearly 1,000 frontline nurses at St. Charles Bend, Oregon’s largest hospital east of the Cascades, began a strike authorization vote Tuesday, their union announced. The hospital said talks continue and they still hope to reach agreement and avoid a walkout.
"Nurses are voting to protect their community’s health and safety, protest St. Charles’ illegal unfair labor practices and fix St. Charles’ growing staffing crisis," the Oregon Nurses Association said.
The vote began Tuesday and continues through Sunday. If passed, nurse leaders are authorized to call for a strike.
St. Charles provided this response to the latest development from Julie Ostrom, senior nursing leader and member of the bargaining team for St. Charles Health System:
"We continue to bargain in good faith with ONA and look forward to the six upcoming bargaining dates set through June. The ONA vote does not mean a strike will occur and our hope is to reach a contract agreement in the coming weeks. We have also proactively asked a federal mediator to join us for sessions in July and August and hope the ONA will agree to mediation if we are unable to reach an agreement by the end of June.
"During our most recent bargaining session, we asked the ONA team about its strike plans and were assured that taking a strike vote is a standard part of their negotiation strategy. They told us they remain committed to reaching an agreement at the bargaining table.
"We agree with the ONA about the importance of retaining and recruiting health care professionals and are happy to report that despite a national shortage of nurses we have been making significant progress. For instance, turnover among Bend nursing staff is declining, and in 2022 St. Charles Bend reported its lowest turnover rate among nursing staff in the past three years. While we have made significant progress in this area, we believe that ONA’s strike tactics, including the strike authorization vote, are inconsistent with our shared goal to recruit and retain quality nursing staff and could be detrimental to that effort.
"In addition, a recent $5 hourly wage increase for all bedside nurses puts St. Charles wages among the highest in the state (for an average annual full-time base salary of $108,000 a year, not including premium and overtime pay). ONA’s data analyst confirmed in recent bargaining that our nurses are currently among the highest paid in the state," Ostrom concluded
Here, in full, is the rest of the news release distributed by ONA Tuesday morning:
Local nurses have been meeting with St. Charles’ executives for more than five months to try to reach a fair contract agreement that addresses the hospital’s nurse staffing crisis, raises safety standards, increases recruitment and retention of skilled caregivers, and ensures all Central Oregonians have access to safe, affordable health care.
“St. Charles executives declared a crisis last July but nothing has changed for our patients. They’re still stuck with blocked beds, canceled surgeries, and long wait times in the ER. As Bend continues to grow, our staff needs to grow too. We need the hospital to recruit, retain and respect nurses so we can care for our community,” said Erin Harrington, a local nurse and chair of ONA’s bargaining team at St. Charles Bend. “Today, St. Charles is leaving us no choice but to vote to strike. We’ve met them halfway but they’ve refused to compromise. Nurses know our patients and our community deserve better. We’re ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
Nurses are not the only ones calling out staffing and safety problems at St. Charles Bend.
- Hospital executives privately declared a staffing emergency at St. Charles' facilities because of its severe nursing shortage in July 2022.
- The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) cited St. Charles Bend for failing to comply with Oregon’s hospital safe staffing law in 2017, 2021, and 2022.
- The hospital currently faces 10 state staffing complaints.
- OSHA recently fined the hospital for serious safety violations.
St. Charles’ chronic unsafe staffing is directly linked to its failures to recruit, retain and respect frontline nurses. Since 2018, nearly 60% of registered nurses at St. Charles Bend resigned. St. Charles Bend has more than 300 vacant nursing positions as of March 21, 2023 per hospital data.
Decades of research and real-life experience confirm a lack of nurses harms community health and leads to longer wait times and hospital stays, higher costs, more patient infections and injuries, more readmissions and more preventable deaths.
St. Charles Bend is also under investigation for multiple unfair labor practices including spying on union nurses during nurses’ personal time, refusing to provide information about its multimillion dollar contracts with outside staffing agencies, and bad faith bargaining.
“The nurses we count on to save our lives are overworked, understaffed and undervalued by St. Charles’ executives. That should set off clanging alarm bells in this community,” said ONA President Tamie Cline. “Executives at St. Charles have ignored repeated warnings about its staffing crisis. Now it’s endangering patients and putting an entire community’s health at risk. Nurses have no choice but to take action to protect their community. They have ONA’s full support as they fight to make their hometown hospital safe.”
Nurses are currently working without a contract after the previous agreement expired Dec. 31, 2022. Contract provisions remain in effect while the parties are engaged in negotiations.
The Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) is the state’s largest and most influential nursing organization. We are a professional association and labor union which represents more than 16,000 nurses and allied health workers throughout the state, including more than 1,200 frontline nurses and allied health workers at multiple St. Charles Health facilities serving Central and Eastern Oregon. ONA’s mission is to advocate for nursing, quality health care and healthy communities. For more information visit: www.OregonRN.org.
