Picketers hold signs along South Wahanna Road outside of Providence Seaside Hospital on Jan. 10, the first day of a strike against Providence Health & Services hospitals and clinics in Oregon.

Providence Health & Services in Oregon and the unions that represent its striking health care workers said Jan. 29 they would resume in-person talks after Gov. Tina Kotek urged them to end the strike.

It’s the first time negotiators from Providence and all bargaining units have met in person since the strike began on Jan. 10. The two sides have exchanged written contract proposals.

Thousands of frontline health care workers at Providence Oregon walked out beginning Jan. 10. The strike includes roughly 5,000 nurses and 150 physicians, midwives and advanced practitioners.

The walkout included staff at all eight Providence hospitals in the state, including Providence Seaside, as well as the Providence Women’s Clinic, which has six locations in the Portland metro area.

On Jan. 29, Providence and the Oregon Nurses Association, the labor union that represents the nurses and other frontline health workers, said in a joint statement Kotek asked them to “re-engage in intensive, in-person mediation beginning today … in an effort to end this strike.”

“Both sides are engaging in every effort to get this dispute resolved as expeditiously as possible and get people back to work,” the two parties added.

The two sides have been deadlocked over issues related to working conditions.

Both nurses and doctors want Providence to increase staffing at its hospitals. They say they are responsible for large numbers of patients, more than they can safely handle.

The Pacific Northwest Hospital Medical Association, which represents 70 hospitalists and palliative care doctors at St. Vincent, has said its members also want protections against outsourcing services at the hospital.

Providence and its workers also haven’t reached an agreement on wages.

Providence said it has offered to increase nurses’ average wages by 20% over the next three years, minus overtime, holiday pay and incentives. Nurses whose contracts expired over a year ago, however, want the pay raises to apply retroactively.

Obstetric hospitalists who provide care for pregnant women at St. Vincent, meanwhile, are pushing for night differential pay and bonus pay for working extra shifts, which they say is already offered to other hospitalists.