St. Charles Bend nurses hold an informational picket near the hospital on April 24. 

Nurses at St. Charles Bend have authorized a strike vote after filing an unfair labor practice charge, negotiating for five months and filing staffing complaints with the Oregon Health Authority.

Nearly 1,000 nurses are represented by the collective bargaining agreement with the Oregon Nurses Association, which opened up the strike vote Tuesday. Workers will continue to vote through Sunday.

A strike vote doesn’t mean a strike is imminent, but sends a message of union solidarity to hospital administrators and that the nurses can call for a strike, the union said. If a majority vote in favor of a strike, it would be the first walkout of nurses since 1980.

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The most recent strike at St. Charles Health System was in 2021 when 140 technicians who run the machinery and treat patients who can’t breathe on their own walked off the job for 10 days before reaching a contract agreement.

“Today, St. Charles is leaving us no choice but to vote to strike,” said Erin Harrington, a St. Charles registered nurse and chairwoman of the union’s bargaining team, in a prepared statement. “We’ve met them halfway, but they’ve refused to compromise. Nurses know our patients and our community deserve better.”

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Julie Ostrom, a senior nursing leader and member of the St. Charles Health System bargaining team, said in a prepared statement that bargaining has been done in good faith and there are still six more upcoming sessions scheduled through June.

The health system has asked for a federal mediator to join the bargaining team in July and August, if a settlement cannot be reached by the end of June, Ostrom said.

“We agree with (the union) about the importance of retaining and recruiting health care professionals and are happy to report that despite a national shortage of nurses, we have been making significant progress,” Ostrom said. “While we have made significant progress in this area, we believe that (the union’s) strike tactics, including the strike authorization vote, are inconsistent with our shared goal to recruit and retain quality nursing staff and could be detrimental to that effort.”

Since the pandemic, the health system has encountered numerous challenges from supply chain issues in the early days to layoffs, financial losses and recruitment issues.

Last week, the health system reported it had 159 traveling health care providers, of which 106 were nurses working at the health system. That’s down from 2022, when the hospital employed 203 traveling employees, of which 153 were registered nurses.

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The union maintains that the hospital has about 300 vacant positions that are going unfilled. Those vacant positions put stress on nurses, who say they receive regular calls for overtime, and forces the health system to close off beds or cancel surgeries if there isn’t enough staff, said Kevin Mealy, Oregon Nurses Association spokesman, in an interview.

Traveling health care workers earn a higher wage than salaried employees. At the Central Oregon health system, nurses were given a $5-an-hour wage hike in February. Nurses earn on average a base salary of $108,000.

Salary and staffing remain key sticking points throughout the 14 bargaining sessions, Mealy said. Recently, nurses have questioned the safe staffing ratios in the various units of the hospital. State lawmakers are also discussing this issue with House Bill 2697, a measure that would make law a nurse-to-patient ratio.

“We hear from nurses that they’re afraid for their patients if St. Charles continues the same path,” Mealy said. “Nurses are taking a stand to help make St. Charles a place that the community can depend upon. It’s that important. “