Oregon hospital workers strike over pay, security
Bend Oregon March 9 2021 More than 100 workers on Friday lined Neff Road and Medical Center Drive for the second day of a walkout at St. Charles Bend of striking therapists, technicians and technologists.
No contract talks were scheduled, except for Wednesday when the hospital and the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals will meet with a federal mediator.
“The toughest thing is we haven’t received a written proposal past one with salary increases in the first year,” said Frank DeWolf, a St. Charles Bend catheterization lab technologist. “Our salary is lower than our counterparts in Western Oregon. Our salaries are lower across the board.”
A typical ultrasound technician makes $10-$15 more per hour in Portland than at St. Charles, said Sam Potter, union external organizer.
The union and St. Charles have met 28 times in the course of more than a year and have hammered out most of the contract language except for salary and differentials. The workers formed a union in 2019 and this is their first contract negotiation with St. Charles.
St. Charles Health System, which operates the Bend hospital, said in a prepared statement that there are two items on the table: compensation and union security.
The health system said that it ended 2020 about $21 million below its financial targets even after federal grant money from the the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Losses were incurred due to the period of time when the hospital could not perform scheduled surgeries as a way to regulate hospital patient loads in case of a surge of COVID-19 patients.
Last year, the nonprofit hospital received about $33 million in CARES Act funding and so far in 2021 received an additional $19 million, said Lisa Goodman, St. Charles Health System spokeswoman.
Even with the federal funds, Goodman said the hospital missed financial targets due to COVID-related losses.
“While the CARES Act funding mitigated our losses, it did not make us financially whole,” Goodman said in an email.
Since Thursday, the hospital has hired replacement workers, but many of the procedures these technicians, technologists or therapists do, have been canceled, Potter said. Roughly 94% of the 156 members voted to strike, Potter said.
“We hear surgeons are refusing to do procedures with the replacement workers,” Potter said. “You need to trust the team you work with. There’s not been any training or orientation for the replacement workers.”
Meanwhile, members of the community from other unions and politicians have joined the picketers. This is the first labor strike at St. Charles since 1980.
“It really says something about the conditions at the workplace,” Potter said. “This doesn’t happen frequently. Often therapists, technicians and technologists are undervalued for the work they do. They’re paid less and fired more easily.”
oregonlive.com
