PAGE 2 | May 21, 2021 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
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...Providence
deal took 3 years
From Page 1
gaining agreement provides
raises of 2%, 1.5%, and 1.5% in
May 2021, 2022, and 2023. But
it also continues the hospital’s
discretion to base pay rates on
management’s judgment of em-
ployees’ “merit.” That’s rare for
union contracts. Wages will rise
more than the annual minimums
though, union spokesperson
Tara Noftsier explained, be-
cause of other pay features in
the contract.
The agreement establishes a
convoluted set of pay ranges—
for each job classification, when
an employee starts and when
they reach the 5, 15, and 20 year
mark, the contract specifies
minimum, mid-range, and max-
imum pay. Because many work-
ers are making less than the
minimums in that scale, they’ll
get raises. Local 49 estimates
wages will rise on average 13%
over the course of the three
years, or just under 4.5% a year.
Some will see greater improve-
ments, and some smaller. The
biggest increases will go to the
least-paid workers, including
housekeepers, whose starting
wage rose from $14.03 to
$15.30 an hour.
The contract also requires the
hospital to give workers their
schedules at least two weeks in
advance (some previous sched-
ule postings had said, “check
daily.”) And it includes certain
basic union rights, like the right
to have a union steward present
during disciplinary meetings
with a manager, and the require-
ment that all discipline be
grounded on “just cause.”
Portland-based Local 49 rep-
resents 10,000 health care work-
ers at Kaiser Permanente,
Legacy Health Systems, Peace-
health, and several smaller hos-
pitals. Providence, based in
Renton, Washington, is a chain
of 51 hospitals in six states.
At every stage, Providence
fought to frustrate and oppose the
union. As bargaining dragged on
and on, Providence said it could-
n’t give interim raises to union
members, but it relented after Lo-
cal 49 complained to the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board
(NLRB).
“I think part of them dragging
it out was really trying to break
our willpower and break our de-
sire to have a contract,” said
housekeeper Melissa O’Neil, a
17-year Providence Milwaukie
employee and member of the
union bargaining team. “But it
didn’t work.”
Though nurses at the hospital
are represented by Oregon Fed-
eration of Nurses and Health
Professionals (OFNHP), this was
the first unit of hospital support
workers at Providence to union-
ize with Local 49, and it’s still the
only one. In December 2018, a
similar group of 800 workers at
Providence Portland Medical
Center voted by a razor-thin mar-
gin to unionize, but Trump ap-
pointees to the NLRB overturned
that result last July by reinterpret-
ing a single smudged ballot.
“It doesn't matter how small
you are,” O’Neil said. “You
know, David fought Goliath and
won, and so did we.”