PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — Advanced practice providers (APPs) represented by the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) are staying out on the picket line after members overwhelmingly rejected the tentative contract agreement reached with Legacy Health reached Dec. 23.

According to a representative with the ONA, APPs voted to continue the strike, claiming Legacy has failed to make significant movement at the bargaining table, has shown disrespect to APPs, and has operated on a management of hypocrisy.

PAST COVERAGE | Striking health care workers reach tentative agreement with Legacy Health

ONA issued a press release, writing, “Since issuing a strike notice, advanced practice providers (APPs) repeatedly offered to meet at any time and in any location to move negotiations forward. Legacy Health instead chose to delay bargaining and engage in bad-faith tactics.”

“[Legacy]They have never taken our time very seriously. They have routinely been late to bargaining, they’ve no-showed to bargaining, they’ve changed bargaining from in-person to virtual at the last minute when all of us showed up on our free time to do this, they have said incredible disrespectful things to us during bargaining,” said Leigh Warsing, a physician associate at Legacy Emanuel and member of the bargaining team. “The fact that they haven’t moved at all on their contract, their proposal to us really devalues us and dismisses what we’re worth.”

APPs also believed the proposed deal would still leave Legacy APPs far behind their peers at other health systems.

“The proposed agreement would have left Legacy APPs 10% behind their counterparts at OHSU, and behind what Kaiser APPs have been offered—perpetuating a widening wage and standards gap that threatens the long-term stability of Legacy’s workforce,” ONA said.

The statement continued, “This disparity would inevitably drive experienced APPs out of the system, worsening patient care, increasing burnout among remaining staff, and inflating costs as Legacy is forced into a constant recruitment and retention cycle of its own making. When frontline providers are undervalued, patient care inevitably suffers.”

Warsing echoed that sentiment.

“There’s a lot of experience in some of these departments, and the fear is that we will lose those providers,” Warsing said. “If the hospital is not willing to competitively keep providers, then they’re going to leave, and we don’t want them to leave. We want our teams to stay together, and we know that we provide amazing patient care as an excellent team, and that’s going to be torn apart of we’re not treated fairly, respectfully, and paid competitively.”

The proposed deal included pay raises, new pay scales, and protections for discipline and termination, as well as the creation of a labor-management committee.

However, the tentative agreement came just days after Legacy executives issued a notice to striking APPs that they could be stripped of health insurance starting January 1.

April Callister, a physician associate at Legacy Emanuel and Legacy Good Samaritan, as well as a member of the bargaining team, said this move could be devastating.

“It would be huge a hit to a lot of striking APPs,” Callister said. “These are people with families, with children, with chronic health conditions who need medications every month. These are people with doctors’ visits. I mean, APPs not only care for people, they’re also people that require care, so it would be really devastating if Legacy were to follow through on that.”

According to Callister, it was important for a tentative agreement to be brought forward to union members due to the uncertainty as the strike continues.

“We’ve been on the strike line for 25 days now,” she said. “People have sacrificed so much to be out here during the holidays away from their family without a paycheck, and now Legacy is threatening to take away the insurance of these providers, and we felt it was really important to give members opportunity to say whether or not this sacrifice was worth it for them, and if they were willing and able to continue fighting for what we’re worth.”

APPs have been on strike since Dec. 2 to reach a contract that they say pays them fairly.

Since the strike began, Callister tells KATU since the strike began, a lot of the physicians have been picking up the pieces.

“Unfortunately, Legacy seems to have put a lot of burden on our physician colleagues, which is incredible sad to see,” Callister said. “We work in a very collaborative environment with all of our team members.”

“Advanced practice providers—including nurse practitioners, physician associates, and clinical nurse specialists—are highly trained clinicians who save lives, perform surgeries, and care for families every day,” ONA said. “They deliver essential, lifesaving care across a wide range of settings and are critical to the health and safety of communities throughout Oregon.”

Warsing said if they can’t come to an agreement, the impact on patients will be losing quality health care providers.

“Patients deserve quality providers, and if all of your quality providers are only in one institution, then it makes it kind of hard for the patients because we can’t just send all of the patients to the one quality institution in the city,” Warsing said.

ONA representatives told KATU they will return to the bargaining table immediately.

“We’re available to bargain,” Warsing said. “The members have resoundingly voted it [the tentative agreement] down, and we’ve informed Legacy lead

KATU News has reached out to Legacy Health, awaiting comment.