(Portland, OR) – In two historic elections to protect patient safety, frontline nurses at Providence Milwaukie Hospital in Milwaukie and Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center in Oregon City voted nearly unanimously to authorize strikes against Providence–one of Oregon’s largest and most profitable health systems. They join nurses at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland who voted to strike in May.
All together, more than 2,000 Oregon nurses at 3 Portland-area Providence hospitals have voted to strike in the last month. Despite being one of the state’s largest companies and regularly collecting more than half of its total profits from Oregonians, Providence has never faced a strike in Oregon.
The unprecedented strike votes are to protest Providence’s illegal unfair labor practices (ULPs) and demand fair contracts which improve patient care, raise nurse staffing standards, make health care more affordable and address Providence’s growing staffing crisis.
Nurses at all three hospitals are proud members of the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA). ONA represents 233 frontline nurses working at Providence Willamette Falls, 239 frontline nurses working at Providence Milwaukie and more than 1,600 ONA nurses at Providence St. Vincent along with nurses at 7 other Providence facilities stretching from Portland to Medford.
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