Nurses picket outside the entrance to the hospital at OHSU. (kgw.com Photo)

OHSU Nurses Walk Off the Job

December 17, 2001, 10:45 AM

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By Landon Hall, AP Staff

Nurses walked off the job at Oregon Health & Sciences University on Monday morning in the state's first nurse's strike in more than a decade.

The 1,500 registered nurses at Oregon's busiest hospital campus -- which also houses the state's only medical school -- went on strike at 7:30 a.m. after a majority of nurses voted to reject OHSU's latest contract offer.

"Our mission is unchanged," said Nursing Director Bonnie Driggers. "Our mission is to care for our patients here at the hospital and continue our research activities."

Driggers said the hospital will continue running at full capacity, with replacement nurses filling all positions. They began arriving over the weekend and spent Sunday going through orientation on OHSU procedures and equipment.

The replacements, who have come from several states as well as the Portland area, all are licensed to work in Oregon and meet OHSU standards, Driggers said.

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OHSU's medical center averages 339 admitted inpatients on any given day. While none will have to be transferred out of the hospital, and no programs will be shut down because of the personnel transition, some services might be "curtailed," Driggers said. She added that hospital staff were evaluating patients to closely examine their needs.

"We will make sure our patients have the right kind of nurses, and enough nurses, to care for them," she said.

Driggers also extended an offer to the more than 300 nurses who voted in favor of the contract offer to cross the picket lines. Some of those nurses had contacted management about coming to work on Monday, OHSU spokeswoman Christine Pashley said.

The last strike by Oregon nurses was in 1990, when a walkout by nurses at Medford's Rogue Valley Medical Center lasted five weeks.

After negotiations with a state mediator broke down, members of the nurses' union on Saturday night overwhelmingly rejected what Driggers called OHSU's final offer. A total of 802 nurses, or 72 percent, voted against the proposal, with 319 favoring the offer. About 400 nurses did not vote.

No new talks have been scheduled.

The nurses want a 19-percent pay increase over two years, while management offered a 14-percent raise over 27 months. OHSU also offered to pay part of a scheduled increase in health-insurance premiums, but not as much as the nurses had sought.

Nurses also complain that they deal with the state's most difficult cases at OHSU, and that considering there's a nationwide shortage, OHSU doesn't pay enough to attract the most qualified among them. OHSU nurses earn about $18 to $28 an hour, $2 to $3 less than at the state's highest-paying hospitals. OHSU counters that it compensates by contributing 12 percent of the nurses' salary to their retirement plans.

"I know of no retirement package in the private sector that even comes close to OHSU's retirement package," Driggers said. She also said that the hospital's last offer is "both fair and the best we can do."

Kathleen Sheridan, a negotiator for the Oregon Nurses Association, countered that OHSU is spending freely on expanding its hilltop campus, at the expense of patient care.

"We're asking them to change their priorities," Sheridan said. "The priority at OHSU should be patient care, and it's not. It's research, and VIP rooms and marble floors. They have a ton of money, and that pie needs to be cut differently."

A prolonged strike could cost OHSU millions, in training of replacements and in reduced patient admissions. But Driggers said meeting the union's demands would place a long-term financial burden on the hospital.

"It will cost a lot," she said of the strike. "It will also cost a lot for the nurses to be on strike.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)