Nurses at Providence Seaside Hospital walked out on the morning of June 19 in a planned five-day strike, the result of an extended bargaining process aimed at raising wages, solving staffing issues and improving sick leave and benefits policies.

The nurses in Seaside, represented by the Oregon Nurses Association, joined forces with hundreds of nurses from Providence Portland Medical Center and Providence Home Health and Hospice for the strike.

Contract negotiations with Providence broke down after a marathon bargaining session in early June.

Nurses at the Seaside location are particularly concerned about their wages falling behind wages in Portland. They also cite continuing staffing issues in the COVID-19 pandemic and difficult working conditions. Another issue of concern is the loss of extended illness time, requiring nurses to rely on limited paid time off during periods of illness.

Given the high cost of living in Seaside and on the North Coast, nurses argue that they should be paid on par with nurses at the Providence location in Portland.

“We get paid significantly less per hour than Portland does, and we’re asking for the same pay because it costs a lot to live on the coast,” said emergency nurse Autumn Doss. “Our housing costs are just as high as in Portland, and we haven’t seen a fair wage increase to make up the gap there.”

Working in a rural area comes with concerns about recruiting and retaining hospital staff. Nurses say higher wages are essential to keep the hospital running effectively.

“It’s hard to retain people out here in a rural area,” Doss said. “We don’t have enough doctors, we don’t have enough nurses, so we need to have equal pay so we can keep people here to provide health care to our community.”

Emergency nurse Mary Romanaggi, a longtime leader of the bargaining unit at Providence Seaside, echoed Doss’s sentiments.

“We’re Providence nurses and we feel like we should be getting paid the same as all the other Providence nurses,” she said.

In response to the strike, Providence Seaside rescheduled elective surgeries and brought in replacement nurses to fill staffing gaps. The hospital also issued a statement outlining current wages, listing the average full-time equivalent nurse’s salary as $128,000 in Portland and $118,000 in Seaside.

The latest offer in negotiations with Seaside nurses, according to the hospital’s statement, included an average wage increase of 11% in year one, followed by an additional 3% in years two and three.

However, the Oregon Nurses Association argues that actual compensation is much lower than advertised. The union also points out that higher wages are not their only demand.

“This isn’t just about money and never has been,” according to a statement issued by the union on Thursday. “It’s about sick time/paid time off to care for ourselves and our families, ensuring safe staffing so our patients are properly cared for, making our careers sustainable, attracting new caregivers to support our work at the bedside and protecting our communities.”

Nurses also noted their frustration with Providence’s negotiating tactics, arguing that hospital leaders have not put in enough time to hear nurses’ concerns.

“I’ve bargained a lot of contracts,” said Romanaggi, who has been working at the hospital for 39 years. “Every contract gets worse and worse to bargain. And it’s because they don’t spend much time at the table. They stall, they stall, they stall. So we go along with the stalling (and) we meet maybe once or twice a month for maybe an hour or two.”

Ultimately, nurses emphasized that the strike was a last resort — and they look forward to returning to their patients once a deal is reached.

“It’s our families that are at risk going in there right now with whatever staff they threw together, so it’s not like we wanted to be here,” said Nathan Weiler, the chair of the bargaining unit’s executive committee. “We were hoping that we could get something that was reasonable and protective for the community.”