“I’m on the picket line because I think we’re very undervalued and the hospital just does not respect us enough to give us a good and fair contract for how much we’ve sacrificed in the past couple years,” Anderson said.

Remember that these are the scabs who took the mRNA shots and refused to support their colleagues who wouldn't.

Nurses on the picket line Monday morning complained that the hospital has put profits ahead of both its patients and its staff. They told OPB they have to work with subpar equipment and that they don’t have enough sick leave and aren’t fairly paid.

I believe they get paid around 80k a year currently.

“We were very clear in our communications to ONA that our economic proposals following a work stoppage will be very different and not nearly as lucrative as the package they walked away from,” reads the email, which was shared with OPB by two sources. ONA is the Oregon Nurses Association, the union representing Providence’s striking staff.

Meanwhile the ONA told them a strike would halt all progress, but the dumb tarts did it anyways.

Walker said three elements of Providence’s final offer were contingent on nurses not striking: retroactive pay, a ratification bonus of $2,500, and 30 additional hours of paid time off.

THEY TURNED THIS OFFER DOWN.

Providence Portland Medical Center had been able to reach its target census of about 300 patients on Monday, a 25% reduction from normal, according to Gentry. She said that after a brief transition period Monday morning when ambulances were diverted elsewhere the hospital was able to start accepting new patients in the emergency department again. Providence has hired temporary nurses to fill in while staff nurses are on strike this week.

They don't even have that much work to do...they are complaining about LESS WORK THEN NORMAL.

In the days leading up to the strike, staff nurses – more than 90% of whom voted to strike – said they wanted respect, improved compensation and better working conditions.

Entitled scabs.

Providence reported that its latest offer to the nurses at Providence Portland Medical Center included an average wage increase of 12% in the first year of the contract, followed by 3% raises in the two following years, and an additional 10 hours of paid time off per year of the three-year contract.

Providence says its last offer included up to eight weeks of fully paid disability leave

EIGHT WEEKS.

Merkley said that he has seen, through his wife’s experience, how nurses’ frustration has reached a boiling point, first, as a wave of retiring baby boomers led to short staffing, and then as nurses cared for the sick and dying during the pandemic, often at personal risk, and with inadequate support from Providence.

“It takes an awful lot for nurses to strike. It really shows how strongly they feel that Providence has gone off track,” Merkley said. “Rather than complaining about paying travel nurses so much, why don’t we treat the people that we have better so that they want to stay with us?”

Unbelievable that a Democrat Senator doesn't mention the huge amount fired for refusing the mRNA shot.