Nearly 3,400 workers began a strike authorization vote last night that will determine whether or not one of the biggest healthcare strikes in Oregon’s history takes place in the coming weeks. This strike authorization vote has come after months of dangerous or nonexistent proposals from Kaiser Permanente management, including a “two-tier” compensation proposal that would damage patient care in the future. 

“Kaiser claims that we are paid above market rate, but this is absolutely false,” says Jodi Barschow, a Kaiser Sunnyside RN and President of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health

The frontline healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente are fighting right now to maintain good patient care and working conditions. Safe staffing and the kind of wages and benefits that can retain staff is their top priority as they bargain their new union contract. We are Patient Defenders: we are the front line to ensuring that our community gets the healthcare it needs to stay healthy.

For us to successfully achieve safe staffing and good jobs we need to work together, care providers and community members, in a collective fight to save our care system. When we are able to win great staffing

PeaceHealth Strike FAQ

What is a strike exactly?

When bargaining fails to result in a contract we can be proud of, a strike is our last option where union workers, together, refuse to go to work, shifting the balance of power and showing the employer how essential we are.

When would a strike occur?

A strike can only occur after the contracts have expired, and all of them will expire by September 30th.

How much notice do we have to give to the employer?

Ten days.

How is a strike determined?

Only a vote of the OFNHP membership would determine whether or not we go on strike

This Nurse’s Week, we want to reflect on what the last year has been like for nurses and health professionals. As frontline healthcare workers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, we have lived with the kind of trauma and stress that few will ever have to face. We have seen our patients suffer, our coworkers pushed to the breaking point, and have looked around as communities struggled to stay afloat. Our entire country saw us for the heroes that we are: they cannot do it without us.

While we have been doing the work of saving lives, many of the executives in these hospitals and clinics have raked in