Some 1,600 nurses at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center have voted “nearly unanimously” to authorize a strike over unfair labor practices, according to the Oregon Nurses Association.

The nurses filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in mid April claiming hospital administrators had illegally discriminated against nurses’ union activities. They authorized a strike vote April 19, and the vote closed Tuesday.

ONA’s Labor Cabinet, which authorizes union strike actions and administers strike funds to support nurses, subsequently met Wednesday and authorized the strike.

Aside from the alleged discrimination against the union, the St. Vincent nurses are seeking better pay and more affordable health care benefits and are demanding the health care system address what they say is serious understaffing on some units that is compromising patient and worker safety. Their contract with Providence expired at the end of last year.

The union declined to release a specific vote count. Kevin Mealy, a spokesperson for the union, said the strike could go forward at any time, though nurse committees are still being formed and there are still two bargaining dates with management scheduled for May 10 and May 23.

If the labor stoppage goes forward, the union says it will provide management with a 10-day notice so they can halt admissions, transfer patients or reach an agreement with nurses. The last time any nurses represented by the ONA went forward with a strike was in 2001 at Oregon Health & Science University. That was a 56-day action, Mealy said, and Gov. John Kitzhaber was ultimately involved in brokering an agreement to end it.

A strike at St. Vincent would be a first for Providence in Oregon, and could presage similar actions at other Providence hospitals in Oregon. The ONA represents some 4,000 nurses at 10 Providence facilities. Nursing contracts have also expired at Providence hospitals in Oregon City and Hood River, and contracts at Portland and Milwaukie hospitals will expire by year’s end. Nurses at those facilities express similar grievances, and nurses at Providence Willamette Falls plan a march and picket next week in Oregon City.

“ONA’s Labor Cabinet authorized a strike because nurses at St. Vincent are taking a stand to defend their rights, protest Providence’s unfair labor practices and protect their patients and coworkers,” Kevyn Paul, a registered nurse and chair of ONA’s Labor Cabinet, said in an emailed statement. “We’ve worked hard to find common ground but Providence refuses to compromise. Nurses won’t keep quiet while our communities get worse and worse care from fewer and fewer nurses.”

Providence has previously denied any violations of federal labor law and said it has put forward competitive pay and benefit packages for nurses.

Providence spokesperson Gary Walker said in an emailed statement that management had attempted to negotiate constructively with nurses for the past seven months. He said ONA has at times delayed agreeing to bargaining dates and had rejected management’s offer to engage a neutral federal mediator.

The strike authorization announcement is “just the latest attempt to delay meaningful discussion, a move that only serves to prevent our valued nurses from receiving the substantial pay raises and expanded benefits they deserve,” Walker said.

– Ted Sickinger; tsickinger@oregonian.com; 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger