About 135 medical professionals at Legacy Health have overwhelmingly voted in favor of authorizing a strike.
The workers — a group of advanced practice providers that includes nurse practitioners, physician associates and clinical nurse specialists — work across Legacy’s hospitals and clinics in Oregon and southwest Washington.
Officials with the Oregon Nurses Association, the union that represents the workers, said the workers have been trying to negotiate a new contract since they unionized over a year ago.
The vote allows workers to call a strike at any time, though they have to give Legacy management at least 10 days’ notice before any walkout. Union leaders said they plan to meet with Legacy negotiators Thursday and next week, and that “striking is a last resort.”
Advanced practice providers say they remain at odds with Legacy leadership over pay and working conditions. A major sticking point, they said, is the amount of uncompensated administrative and nonclinical work they are expected to do — a workload they say contributes to burnout and high turnover.
“We need a contract that protects our professional boundaries and recognizes the time we actually devote to our patients,” Leigh Warsing, a physician associate on the bargaining team, said in a statement. She said physician associates working in the trauma department routinely work beyond their 12-hour shifts, spending an extra hour handing off patients and responding to emergencies without pay.
“In the trauma department, after finishing a 12-hour shift, we often spend another hour updating the incoming PA—unpaid. If an emergency arises, we stay late but are not compensated for that time either. That’s no way to treat your employees.”
Leigh Warsing, a physician associate on the bargaining team, said advanced practice providers at Legacy make less than their peers at other health care systems in the region, which makes it difficult to recruit and retain enough staff.
Legacy officials said in an email statement that they “continue to engage in good faith bargaining” with the union and hope to reach an agreement that benefits workers and patients.
The potential strike comes amid a wave of labor actions across Oregon’s health care sector.
On Tuesday, some 4,000 nurses and other health care workers at Kaiser Permanente in Oregon and southwest Washington began a five-day strike. Earlier this year, nearly 5,000 Providence health workers at all eight Providence hospitals across the state held a 46-day strike that concluded in February.
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