The over 1,700 frontline healthcare workers from PeaceHealth Southwest, PeaceHealth Sacred Heart and PeaceHealth St. John have reached a Tentative Agreement (TA) with management after months of contract negotiations and a five-day Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike. These healthcare workers, who are members of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP, AFT Local 5017), were fighting over issues like living wages and a voice on the job.
“This agreement secures the largest raises for these workers in history,” says Jonathon Baker, OFNHP President. “We could not have won this historic agreement without the amazing dedication and passionate work of all of our members and our community supporters.”
These workers make up all four bargaining units who were negotiating across 2023 with PeaceHealth leadership, including the Lab Professionals at PeaceHealth St. John, the Techs at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart, and the Tech and Service and Maintenance units at PeaceHealth Southwest. The agreement will ensure that no represented worker at Southwest or St. John will receive less than a 20% raise over the life of the contract, and some units will receive as much as a 55% pay raise over the contract's life, with most workers receiving at least a 28% raise.
At Sacred Heart, comparable raises will be implemented, which will be as much as 37% for some workers over a three year contract rather than the four year agreements reached at Southwest and St. John, with most workers getting 20%. Other benefits include longevity and ratification bonuses, increases to differential pay, disciplinary protections, and a staffing committee to work on the issue of systemic short staffing. This agreement would also nullify all ULPs that both management and the union have filed against each other.
Each unit will have their own process to vote on the TAs they reached, with the Service and Maintenance unit (1,000 workers) having begun this morning and ending tomorrow. The rest of the units will be voting on various timelines over the next two weeks and results will be sent out once they are available.