Members of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, AFT Local 5017, are set to begin a strike Oct. 23 at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Wash., and PeaceHealth St. John Medical Center in Longview, Wash., CBS affiliate KOIN reported.
The union represents about 1,300 service and maintenance and tech healthcare workers at PeaceHealth Southwest and the lab professionals at PeaceHealth St. John, according to a news release from OFNHP. Both medical centers are part of Vancouver-based PeaceHealth, a nonprofit health system with medical centers, critical access hospitals and medical clinics in Washington, Oregon and Alaska.
Union members voted to authorize a strike earlier this month. The union and hospital management began negotiating a new labor contract months ago, according to the union release. The union wants to continue bargaining with management in the days leading up to the strike, according to KOIN.
A statement from PeaceHealth shared with Becker's says that during negotiations, the health system has "offered highly-competitive multiple proposals across three contracts that addresses in some way virtually every one of the issues OFNHP told us were important to caregivers."
The union contends that management has not put reasonable offers on the table to sufficiently address issues that affect both staff and patients, such as safe staffing, living wages and a healthy future for patient care.
"We're fighting to improve healthcare access and protect the communities our members serve; we won't settle until we accomplish exactly that," OFNHP President Jonathan Baker said in the union release.
"We value our caregivers, their professionalism and commitment to our patients — and a planned action will not change that," PeaceHealth said in a statement. "We remain committed to reaching an agreement so our caregivers can benefit from the improvements our proposal would provide."