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. The CNAs at PeaceHealth are facing a staffing crisis similar to that faced by our members at Kaiser Permanente, St. Charles, and Mid-Columbia Medical Center, and at hospitals and clinics across the country. 

This action was designed to raise this staffing issue in a way that Gregory could not ignore, showing that PeaceHealth needed to

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.

As a registered nurse, having worked in hospitals in Oregon since 1994, and as a steward in the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, I can testify that hospitals are simply not providing the health care people need--not in terms of access, not in terms of quality or standards of care, not in terms of outcomes for patients. People are

The technical employees at the Mid-Columbia Medical Center in The Dalles, Oregon have voted to approve their first union contract. Negotiations over this contract have lasted several months, after these frontline healthcare workers voted to join the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP), Local 5017 of the 1.7 million member American Federation of Teachers, Nurses and Health Professionals (AFT). These workers voted to ratify this contract by an astounding 100%. 

“We are excited that the techs will finally have a voice at Mid-Columbia Medical Center,” says Meggan Erland, an

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.

Now they will need to vote on ratification, to turn the Tentative Agreement into a final Collective Bargaining Agreement. Voting will take place at in-person sessions where you can look at all the details of the new contract and ask any questions you would like

Your MCMC-OFNHP bargaining team would like to announce that we have reached a tentative agreement with the Hospital on our first contract at MCMC!

The parties negotiated diligently with the assistance of the mediator, and your bargaining team worked hard to ensure that our new contract provides a pay scale that encourages our members to stay at MCMC.  We have to keep our experienced staff here as well as be competitive enough to hire new colleagues. This hospital has traditionally been one of the lowest paying hospitals in the area, but this contract will set a wage scale that includes steps