St. Charles Medical Center in Bend has reached a tentative contract agreement with its nearly 1,000 nurses that averts a strike and will significantly increase compensation, particularly for starting nurses.
The agreement came after a marathon 40-hour negotiating session between hospital management and Oregon Nurses Association staffers. The three-and-a-half year contract still must be approved by the rank and file workers.
Scott Powell of the Oregon Nurses Association said the new contract will help end the staff shortages at St. Charles, primarily by paying nurses more — some of them significantly more. Compensation for nurses early in their career will increase 48% over the life of the contract, Powell said.
St. Charles officials declined to comment. In a press release, the hospital said it was “pleased to announce” the tentative agreement “after two very full days and nights of bargaining.”
How St. Charles can afford a 48% raise for its rookie nurses is unclear. It suffered big losses during the pandemic, leading to concerns about its long-term financial viability. Hospital executives argue that their institutions have been stuck with exorbitant costs for traveling nurses,. They’ve also become the de facto holding tanks for thousands of deeply troubled patients who often are also broke and have nowhere to go after being treated.
Health care workers counter that the hospitals’ financial issues were worsened by the big sums paid to temporary workers and top executives.
Union officials hope the St. Charles deal provides a template for its other ongoing contract fight with Providence Portland Medical Center and Providence Hospital in Seaside. About 1,300 hospital nurses, and another 400 Providence home health nurses, also could go on strike.
Those Providence nurses authorized a strike in a vote that concluded this week and could at any time issue a required 10-day strike notice to Providence management.
Exhausted by the pandemic, many nurses quit or found other jobs that required less hands-on treatment of patients. Even though COVID-19 has waned, hospitals continue to struggle to retain nurses.
Powell claims St. Charles suffered 50% turnover among its nursing staff just in 2022. The union spokesman attributed that level of turnover to working conditions inside St. Charles and said nurses in the hospital missed 42,000 contractually obligated meal and rest breaks just in 2022.
