As you review our Tentative Agreement (TA), we want to speak plainly and respectfully about what this agreement does and what it means for your day-to-day work.
This contract does not include everything we set out to achieve. We made real progress, and we also faced real limitations. Both are true. Our responsibility was to bargain an agreement we believe improves our working conditions, protects nurses, and moves us forward in a healthcare system that is changing rapidly around us.
Because Oregon now has state-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios with enforcement and fines, staffing protections are no longer just contractual; they are the law. That reality shaped this bargaining cycle. Instead of duplicating ratios in our contract, we focused on strengthening everything that surrounds staffing: transparency, scheduling fairness, workload response, protections from discipline, and accountability when systems fail.
Here is what these changes mean in your day-to-day work:
You will see clearer and fairer processes for extra shifts, holidays, job bidding, and rapid shuffle, reducing arbitrary decision-making and increasing transparency. Charge and relief charge nurses are reinforced as being chosen by labor, not management, protecting clinical leadership and peer accountability. When Employee Health directs you to stay home due to illness, that time cannot be counted against you for attendance, and reinforced emergency days without pay are not subject to corrective action.
When outpatient nurses raise concerns about staffing adequacy or workload, the employer must review the data and respond with mitigation strategies or a rationale within defined timelines. Seniority is now more accurately tracked, better protected, and reciprocated across bargaining units. These are not abstract changes. They affect how concerns are raised, how schedules are built, and how disputes are resolved.
In your paycheck, this agreement delivers a 12.5 percent wage increase, with an expected additional 9.5 percent over the following 12 months according to Kaiser's current ATB proposal. It also improves multiple differentials, adds new pay categories, and invests in career advancement through expanded ladder funding and additional wage steps. While this does not erase every gap, it represents meaningful forward movement within the national wage framework we are operating under.
In your life outside of work, the agreement expands bereavement leave, honors chosen family, corrects mileage reimbursement for home health nurses who are required to travel as part of their job, allows education funds to be used for required licenses, and restores autonomy around breaks for outpatient nurses. These are quality-of-life improvements that matter over time.
Just as important is what we protected. No-cancellation language remains intact. Flexible personal days were preserved despite the employer seeking their removal. Our benefits, where we continue to pay very little for healthcare, remain strong at a time when many healthcare workers across the country are losing coverage or paying substantially more.
It is important to note that there are still several outstanding issues on the National table, including contract alignment, PSP, retro pay, and agreement on ATBs, all of which impact local agreements.
We are bargaining in a moment of real uncertainty in healthcare, from staffing instability to legislative and funding threats that could reshape the system nationally. In that environment, protecting benefits, job security, and enforceable processes is critical. This agreement focuses on stability, protections, and rebuilding areas where we had fallen behind, so that the next bargaining cycle can focus on raising the bar rather than rebuilding the floor.
We will not tell you how to vote.
Every member deserves the opportunity to review this agreement, attend town halls, ask questions, and decide what feels right for them. Our commitment is to continue providing information openly and honestly, just as we have throughout this process.
Whatever comes next belongs to the membership.
Click Here to Read a List of All RN Unit Local Tentative Agreements
Click Here to Read All Signed Tentative Agreements from 2025 RN Bargaining