With great disappointment, we announce that due to reaching impasse, we must consider the real possibility of going on strike. We are asking all represented nurses to attend upcoming Strike Schools. We need everyone to take part in the Strike Schools, where we can do the following:
1) We’ll review where things stand on all remaining items in negotiations between our proposals and management’s and the larger economic picture.

2) We will answer all the big questions about strikes and your protections under labor law. Be sure to read our Strike FAQ.

3) We will address questions about the strike vote process, and make sure everyone opts into ONA-AURN texts and emails to receive ballots for strikes and ratification votes. A strike will only occur if the vast majority of represented nurses vote NO to reject management’s final offer and go on strike. Even if you are currently receiving texts or emails, you still might need to fully opt-in, so everyone please fill out the form to ensure you’ll be able to vote. Be sure to check both boxes to opt-in.

4) We will gather your direct feedback on the remaining issues at stake in negotiations.

5) And we’ll discuss what it will take to mobilize 3100 nurses to stand together to win a strong contract.

For all those able to attend in person, it’s essential that nurses hear from each other and discuss issues together. Going on strike is one of the biggest collective actions that workers can take, and it requires physical presence, trust and solidarity with your fellow workers. To stand together we need to be in community with each other. Working at OHSU is often isolating and alienating, and we need to change that to become stronger and make OHSU a place we can all be proud of. We encourage everyone that lives within an hour of OHSU to make time to come in person for these. We will have virtual options for all our remote folks that live far away and out of state.

To summarize from the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics, Provision 6: “The nurse, through individual and collective effort, establishes, maintains, and improves the ethical environment of the work setting and the conditions of employment that are conducive to safe, quality healthcare….The needs of patients may never be used to obligate nurses to remain in persistently morally unacceptable work environments.” We take from this as a call to action when confronted with the persistently unsafe environment at OHSU for nurses and our patients. 

We also must take a critical step in shifting the priorities of the largest hospital in Oregon:  
• OHSU profited $1.25 billion over the last ten years while nurses’ compensation fell, staffing grew more unsafe, and retention dropped to critical levels.
• While the top nine OHSU executives earned over $7,294,099 last year, wages of our members effectively dropped 4.1%. Our cost-of-living increases were far below inflation leaving us 3.5% behind. Management refused retention increases during the pandemic as retention numbers tanked. Management refused to pick up the cost of the new Oregon Family Medical Leave Insurance Program that started deducting 0.6% of our wages on Jan 1, 2023. Current proposals from management attempt to catch us up to some hospitals but leave us behind our peers at Level 1 Trauma Research Hospitals.
• Management justified in writing the $7.3 million in Executive Compensation stating: “OHSU uses national, regional and local benchmarks to establish the Total Rewards packages.” However, repeatedly at the bargaining table management has stated that nurses should earn comparable wages to hospitals “only within driving distance” of OHSU.
• Our OHSU president, Danny Jacobs earns $1.3 million per year, more than the president of the entire University of California system Michael Drake who earns around $890K and presides over six academic medical centers, ten campuses, and 510,000 students and staff.
• Our CEO John Hunter earns $1.1 million a year and received 41% in raises during the pandemic while he decided that nurses would get 14.75% increases during that same time that left us 3.5% behind due to inflation.
• The General Counsel of OHSU, Alice Cuprill Comas, received 44% in increases during the pandemic earning $667,000 per year.

OHSU executives must reflect on the decisions they made and choose to make better ones now. With an expired contract, our members have made it clear negotiations cannot drag on.

By Wednesday, Aug. 16, we will submit copies of all our final proposals and associated costs to the Employment Relations Board. We are resuming mediation during the 30-day cooling-off window that ends September 15. Management and the mediator have offered us dates for mediation with the next one occurring on August 23. We do not want to strike, and hope that the OHSU executives reconsider their priorities so that significant movement occurs at the table to reach an agreement immediately. OHSU works because we do.

For more updates, be sure to also follow us on Instagram @aurnnursesofona and join our private Facebook group, ONA Nurses of OHSU.  

And most important of all: Update your information to opt-in to text and email for voting.