In our most recent bargaining session, the employer met our team with little movement on multiple important issues. We have an update in our table below to highlight the positions of both the union and the employer.
In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.
On the morning of Wednesday, March 1st, more than 20 Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA)s marched into the office of PeaceHealth Columbia Network’s CEO, Sean Gregory, demanding increased incentive pay as a solution for the unsafe staffing levels many report facing.
Below is a testimony written by Jamie Dawson, a Kaiser Permanente RN who submitted this written testimony in support of our staffing bill, HB 2697. This gives a clear picture of what is happening at the hospital, and why we need safe staffing now.
The technical employees at the Mid-Columbia Medical Center in The Dalles, Oregon have voted to approve their first union contract.
Nearly 250 years since our country’s founding, some Americans are still attempting to restrict others’ basic freedoms. In Florida and elsewhere, censoring books is part of larger efforts to exert greater control over and undermine education.
The Mid-Columbia Medical Center techs have just won a Tentative Agreement on their first union contract since voting to join the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. This ia major step forward for these healthcare workers in their fight for healthcare and workplace justice and in changing the culture at Mid-Columbia.
Our bargaining team met with management last week to continue the process of bargaining our contract, and we are also looking forward to Friday, February 10th, when we return to negotiations.
OFNHP is bringing our collective voice to Salem to advocate for the interests of healthcare workers and the people we serve. In the middle our state of emergency, the Oregon Association Health and Hospital Systems (OAHHS) had the hubris to state in an open hearing that it is their intent to attempt to repeal the 2015 RN staffing law. They want to eliminate what limited protections we have for staffing in our hospitals.
As of 5:15 on January 10th, the President of Oregon Federation of Nurses and Healthcare Professionals (OFNHP), Jonathon Baker, filed a "demand to bargain" setting the expectation that Kaiser Permanente negotiates with our Bargaining Unit leaders over the impacts of the recent situation with our members.
Jonathon has issued this statement upon the filing of the "demand to bargaing":