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tina kotek
Oregon Medical Workers Launch Largest Healthcare Strike in State History
Over 5,000 frontline healthcare professionals walked off the job at Providence hospitals and clinics across the Beaver State.
Jan 10, 2025
Thousands of Oregon medical caregivers at Providence hospitals launched what organizers are calling the largest healthcare strike in state history Friday as they fight for improved patient care, fair wages, and better working conditions in their new contract.
Around 5,000 nurses, doctors, midwives, and other healthcare professionals began their indefinite strike at 6:00 am local time Friday, Oregon Public Broadcastingreported. Workers walked off the job at Providence hospitals including: St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Providence Portland, Providence Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Providence Milwaukie, Providence Hood River, Providence Seaside, Providence Newberg, and Providence Medford. Numerous clinics are also affected.
Striking nurses are seeking higher wages, better nurse-to-patient ratios, more paid time off, and lower out-of-pocket costs on their healthcare plans. Doctors want Providence to cap hospital admissions when patient numbers climb too high.
"We're asking for competitive compensation that reflects the reality of our work, the long hours, the emotional toll, and the ever-growing demands that are placed on us," Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) member Gina Ottinger, a registered nurse, told the Oregon Capital Chronicle on Friday. "We're asking for wages that keep pace with inflation."
Healthcare workers' unions are also asking for employment guarantees should Providence sell off their hospitals. The unions have also flagged contract alignment issues; Providence favors a three-year deal, while workers are seeking two-year agreements.
"This strike could have been avoided," ONA executive director Anne Tan Piazza
said at a Thursday press conference. "We need Providence to stop refusing to negotiate and come back to the table."
In a recent statement explaining the strike, ONA said: "Providence is a $30 billion corporation whose top executives make million-dollar salaries and are too focused on profits and not enough on high-quality patient care. Providence's outgoing CEO made more than $12 million in 2024."
"The corporatization of healthcare has left many Providence employees frustrated and burnt out as they are being told to spend less and less time with patients and more time trying to drive up profits," the union added. "Providence offers their employees healthcare plans that are far worse than other healthcare systems, with some Providence employees having to pay $5,000 out of pocket to receive services at the place they work."
“The corporatization of health care has left many Providence employees frustrated and burnt out as they are being told to spend less ..time with patients and more time trying to drive up profits."5,000 Oregon doctors, RNS & caregivers will be on strike starting Jan 10 www.wweek.com/news/2024/12...
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— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten.bsky.social) January 5, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Providence officials say the company has made "competitive offers" to hospital bargaining units, "including double-digit pay increases for hospital nurses representing more than $12,000 a year for a typical nurse."
In a Friday statement referencing Oregon's mandatory 10-day strike notice period, Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said that "Providence wasted 10 days when they could have been at the table making progress towards a comprehensive resolution of their labor dispute."
"We must take care of the people who take care of Oregonians—all hospital staff deserve a fair contract," she added. "Oregonians are already experiencing disruptions to care. All parties must return to the table immediately to resolve their disagreements so normal operations and care can resume."
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Over Apple's Objections, Oregon Governor Signs Nation's Strongest Right to Repair Law
"Oregon becomes the first state to ban 'parts pairing,' which let companies like Apple decide when and how you replace parts."
Mar 27, 2024
In a move that advocates said will save Oregon residents money while supporting small businesses and reducing waste of electronic devices, Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek on Wednesday signed the Right to Repair Act, a law that passed earlier this month despite Apple's lobbying efforts.
The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), applauded the signing of the bill, which requires manufacturers to provide Oregonians and small repair businesses with access to the parts, tools, and information needed to fix personal electronics and household appliances.
Manufacturers like Apple frequently require consumers to go to their stores or authorized service providers for repairs, making them expensive for customers and difficult to access for people who live far from the providers.
Charlie Fisher, state director of Oregon PIRG, said the law means Oregon is "moving forward on an innovation even more critical than a new gadget: the right to fix our electronic devices."
"By eliminating manufacturer restrictions, the right to repair will make it easier for Oregonians to keep their personal electronics running," said Fisher. "That will conserve precious natural resources and prevent waste. It's a refreshing alternative to a 'throwaway' system that treats everything as disposable."
The Right to Repair Act, which will go into effect on January 1, 2025, was supported by roughly 100 small businesses that provide repairs across the state, as well as recycling nonprofit organizations.
Apple testified against the bill, saying it opposed a provision against "parts pairing." The practice requires consumers or independent repair businesses to purchase parts from Apple and have them validated by the company.
John Perry, a senior security manager at Apple, told state senators that the provision would "undermine the security, safety, and privacy of Oregonians by forcing device manufacturers to allow the use of parts of unknown origin and consumer devices."
State Rep. Courtney Neron (D-26) cited a letter from the Federal Trade Commission when she told her colleagues that Apple's parts paring requirements "drive up the price that consumers must pay to fix a device and cause consumers to purchase a new device before the end of its useful life."
"Manufacturer repair restrictions also make it more challenging for small repair businesses to compete and contribute to unnecessary e-waste," she said.
Pro-labor media organization More Perfect Union called Kotek's signing of the bill "a major loss for Apple."
"Oregon has a proud history of passing forward thinking policies that help Oregonians steward and respect the resources that go into making the products we use everyday," said Celeste Meiffren-Swango, state director of Environment Oregon, "and we are building on that legacy with the Right to Repair Act."
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Oregon Gov. Kotek to Sign 'Unconscionable' Bill Recriminalizing Drugs
The landmark decriminalization measure passed by state voters in 2020 "now stands as a cautionary tale about the failure to match bold policy reform with competent administration," said one reporter.
Mar 08, 2024
The Drug Policy Alliance's leader expressed disappointment on Friday after Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek confirmed that she plans to sign legislation rolling back the state's historic measure that decriminalized possession of small amounts of all drugs.
"Today is not the end, just a detour. While I am saddened by today's developments, we at the Drug Policy Alliance will continue to advocate fiercely for an evidence-based, health approach to drugs in Oregon and across the United States," said Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the advocacy group, which is part of the Oregonians for Safety and Recovery (OSR) coalition.
"The recriminalization of drugs in Oregon is happening in a difficult national environment where criminal justice reforms at large are under attack by special interests," she added. "As politicians learn that criminalization will not solve—and will worsen—the problems that Oregonians care about, opportunities to establish a true health-based drug policy should emerge. Despite this setback, the movement to replace drug criminalization with care continues. We won't back down until our communities are healthy."
Our ED @Kassandra_Fred responds to Oregon's return to failed drug war policies. Her vision? We actually ensure people get the resources that they need to thrive. Decriminalization of all drugs is a part of that vision - one part of a tapestry of interventions communities need. pic.twitter.com/ih8n87Eepz
— Drug Policy Alliance (@DrugPolicyOrg) March 8, 2024
Oregon voters passed Measure 110, also called the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, by a 17% margin in 2020, and it took effect the following February. The state was the first and only in the country to take the decriminalization and treatment approach, a shift widely lauded by drug policy groups. However, the measure "now stands as a cautionary tale about the failure to match bold policy reform with competent administration," Tim Dickinson wrote Thursday for Rolling Stone.
The Oregon Health Authority "provided inadequate support to the Oversight and Accountability Council, the body responsible for Measure 110 funding allocations," a Drug Policy Alliance memo explains. "This resulted in a significant delay in funding getting to service providers."
"The state failed to provide any training or standardized citation forms to law enforcement, many of whom were opposed to Measure 110," the memo continues. "The state deliberately chose not to advertise the screening hotline to the public. Rather than working to improve Measure 110 and provide real solutions, policymakers caved to a rollback effort bankrolled by business interests and led by the former chief of Oregon's prisons."
"Locking people up for possessing drugs or forcing them into court-ordered programs does not end drug use, but it does increase harms, including death."
In a wide-ranging statement about the end of this year's legislative session, Kotek announced Thursday that "reforms to Measure 110 will start to take shape, as I intend to sign House Bill 4002 and the related prevention and treatment investments within the next 30 days."
"As governor, my focus is on implementation. My office will work closely with each implementing authority to set expectations, specifically in response to the Criminal Justice Center's Racial Equity Impact Statement, which projected disproportionate impacts to communities of color and the accompanying concerns raised by advocates," she said. "House Bill 4002 will require persistent action and commitment from state and local government to uphold the intent that the legislature put forward: to balance treatment for individuals struggling with addiction and accountability."
As OPBdetailed on Monday:
The system created by H.B. 4002 is complex; people found with drugs can be charged with a crime, but there will be multiple paths they might take to avoid conviction. Lawmakers have envisioned a "deflection" system that is meant to be a major step in that direction. Under the proposal, counties that choose to participate would create a way for police to route people caught with drugs to service providers, rather than to jail and the courts system.
So far, at least 23 counties—accounting for the vast majority of Oregon's population—have signaled interest. But what kind of policies they might create is unknown, hinging partly on state funding.
"H.B. 4002 is being touted as a compromise, but we ask at the cost to whom?" Jennifer Parrish Taylor, director of advocacy and public policy at the Urban League of Portland, an OSR member, said after Oregon legislators passed the bill with bipartisan support last week, with a 21-8 vote in the state Senate and 51-7 vote in the House.
"It is an unacceptable compromise when we know that there will be disparate impacts to Oregonians of color," she argued. "It is not enough to monitor the system when we know it is a system that has bias built into it. I fear that we will be back next year, hearing those stories of harm, figuring out how to make our communities whole."
Frederique warned in an opinion piece for The Daily Beast that "this recriminalization is dangerous. We've been down this road before. More than 50 years of evidence demonstrates that locking people up for possessing drugs or forcing them into court-ordered programs does not end drug use, but it does increase harms, including death."
\ud83d\udc40 Multiple articles and experts have emphasized the racial disparities, surge of arrests, and overall ineffectiveness that will result from recriminalizing drug addiction. We won\u2019t say \u201cWe told you so\u2026\u201d You can see the proof for yourself at https://t.co/MPdGLO5mMQ #orleg #orpol— (@)
Jessica Maravilla, policy director at the ACLU of Oregon, another OSR member, noted that as lawmakers debated the bill, "thousands of us took action and engaged in our democracy—calling and emailing lawmakers and submitting testimony for hearings."
"We asked for real solutions including more treatment, housing, prevention programs, community revitalization efforts, and nonpolice mobile crisis response teams," she said. "The ACLU of Oregon community has deep gratitude for the lawmakers who voted 'no' to the false promises of criminalization in H.B. 4002—and its unconscionable human and other costs to our state."
As Current Affairs' Nathan Robinson concluded while Oregon legislators considered their options last month, "This is not a story about the failure of decriminalization, it's a story about how U.S. politicians, even in a liberal state, seem incapable of addressing any social problem through means other than cruelty."
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