On June 18th, 2023, 1,800 medical workers at two Providence facilities in both Seaside, Oregon and Portland, Oregon went on strike; however, the regime union leadership in the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) sabotaged the workers’ struggle by convincing them to accept the notion of a limited “5 day strike”, encouraging workers to cooperate with the boss by allowing scabs easy access to the workplace and ultimately using the strike as an opportunity to promote ruling-class politicians in the Democratic Party.

After being exposed to an unknown and deadly virus while the capitalist economy could not produce enough protective equipment to provide a minimum of safety, at the onset of the 2020 pandemic, medical workers were described as “heroes" by the bosses and in the capitalist press, in order to encourage their self-sacrifice and to retain workers in a labor market that was being decimated by the crisis. In this period, some management practices relaxed in order to retain employees and keep their enterprises operational. With the end of the pandemic, however, the capitalist class is working hard to subordinate labor to content itself with its former bargaining power, while accepting low wages that don’t keep pace with inflation. Given these conditions, in workplaces where unions exist, leadership is often being forced into a position where strike action in unavoidable. For Oregon medical workers, nurses and clinicians, this was the first strike in 22 years. Despite this, at its conclusion none of the workers’ demands were met and the company continues to refuse to budge.

The ONA, a member of the regime union federation AFL-CIO, announced its planned 5 day strike, 10 days in advance to Providence, as is required by hospital unions under the State legal apparatus. In the 10 day lead-up to the strike, Providence hired 453 scabs and parked a number of refrigerator trucks stocked with supplies onsite. The union leadership was unable and unwilling to maintain an effective picket line and put no priority in resisting these scabs in any manner throughout the strike. They claimed that “enough” economic damage was being done as things were to bring the boss back to the table around the workers’ demands; however, the results proved otherwise.

ONA’s “strike” was largely a symbolic action that fit well into the electoralist machinations of leadership eager to cozy up to capitalist class politicians for favors. With a neat end date and no real attempt being made to maintain a picket line or frustrate the entrance of replacement workers, it was guaranteed that the strike action would not interrupt union leadership’s larger work of passing labor reform initiatives along with their partners in the Democratic Party, who govern the State and for whom any serious labor unrest would reflect very poorly on. The kickoff rally for the strike organized by ONA featured a who’s who list of Democratic Party elite, as both speakers and attendees, including US Senator Jeff Merkley, and nearly a dozen other Democratic representatives from both houses of the Oregon State Legislature. Throughout the strike ONA, leadership engaged in a PR campaign on social media centering supportive comments from Democratic Party leadership along with other organs of the capitalist left, from Jobs with Justice to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Union leadership on the picket line worked to keep a tame disposition in the striking workers, freezing any attempts by the rank and file to frustrate or demoralize scabs.

Union leadership consistently articulated the workers’ struggle around a supposed common interest with employers in “fixing” the healthcare system. They were careful to keep the narrative of the strike along narrow craft union lines instead of articulating the workers’ struggle through a class lens that could have appealed to workers across sectors for sympathy and solidarity. Their tactics didn’t count on working-class solidarity, though, because they relied on cowardly stratagems of class collaboration.

At the conclusion of the strike, Providence continued to refuse to come to the bargaining table and even reneged on previous contract offers; however, on the ONA’s website they celebrated “multiple victories” as a result of the strike, the primary one being the passage of Oregon House Bill 2697.

According to ONA’s Facebook page: “We believe HB 2697 is vital to fixing Oregon’s collapsing healthcare system…. Beginning this fall, ONA will engage in rule making with the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) to guide them in implementing some of the most complex elements of the bill. And, between now and when the ratios and new committees of HB 2697 take effect next year, we will be training our staffing committee members to transition towards implementing those bill provisions into staffing plans”.

Such statements point to the way that ONA operates as a regime union, fully integrated with the State acting as a class collaborationist organ of the Democratic Party, negotiating the conditions of the sale of labor and renovating dysfunctional elements of the capitalist State regulatory bureaucracies. They claim to be “fixing Oregon’s collapsing healthcare system”; however, there is no “fixing” any aspect of an economic system fundamentally based on the exploitation of human labor. ONA leadership accepted defeat from the onset. Instead of building the workers’ collective power to combat their class enemy, after the strike, they turned to the capitalist class legal system to resolve the scab issue by suing the company for hiring replacement workers; however, under bourgeois law such legal maneuverings have just as much, if not more, chance of backfiring and setting a legal precedent with a result contrary to the workers’ interests.

In the course of the strike, the regime union nature of the Oregon Nurses Association, incapable of effectively conducting a class battle, became apparent. The manner in which ONA leadership used the strike as a relationship-building opportunity with elected officials ties into their broader strategic orientation of passing legislative reforms by currying favor with Democratic political leaders. Ultimately, their attempt to frame the passage of a labor reform law for medical workers as a “victory” won by the strike is a repugnant attempt by union leadership to distract workers from the fact that none of their bargaining demands were met: the strike was really only incidental to their legislative strategy. This demonstrates yet again why workers must reject the leadership of the regime unions who claim to represent them. Workers must instead build a union movement, centered in the unbridgeable chasm between the interests of the capitalist class and the working class, outside the regime union legal apparatus of the capitalist State, and towards a united class union front.

Our Intervention

Members of the International Communist Party in Portland, Oregon intervened in the 5 day Providence medical workers’ strike which occurred in late June 2023. We focused our activities around supporting the workers’ coordination we participate in, called the “Class Struggle Action Network” (CSAN).

In the days leading up to the strike, CSAN organized participants for picket-line solidarity by emailing and texting the contact list of 90 workers in the area to sign up for shifts throughout the duration of the strike. A day before the strike, our militants assisted CSAN in surrounding the hotel where the scabs were staying with flyers letting the traveling nurses know they were being used to de-fang a strike. We encouraged them not to scab, but to instead join the rest of the workers in a class union movement.

On the first day of the strike, CSAN distributed about 400 leaflets at the kick-off rally. CSAN militants quickly gained respect and trust from the rank and file as well as some union organizers. One CSAN member was given a megaphone to lead chants. When we arrived at the “picket-line”, CSAN militants were given a tour by workers and information on the entrances that hold the most important choke points and the expected arrival times of scabs. We were given the only copy of a resolution passed by the Teamsters local which proved to drivers their union would support them honoring the picket by refusing to cross the line. CSAN members hung a banner at the main scab entrance/exit that read “picket lines mean do not cross”. Here, CSAN members held a picket line, helping to turn away a supply truck driven by a Teamsters union driver, and inconvenience 10 vans full of scabs as they came and went. There were some clashes with security on the picket, but one security worker just sat by. The next day this security worker approached a CSAN member and said “forget the boss, pay the workers”. The worker refused to be a part of further scab escorting. Rank and file workers and some union militants came to know some of us by name, effectively acknowledging us as sort of picket captains for the week at this entrance. Those workers began wearing CSAN buttons to show their support for the coordination.

On the second day, we distributed 60 more leaflets. CSAN militants and a few medical workers gathered once again at the scab entrance. Soon after our arrival, the scab buses began pouring in. CSAN members engaged in more slow-downs of the scab buses by slowly walking across the street while chanting slogans. As buses continued to dangerously push through workers, security stepped in to force us out of the way. After this conflict with security, union officials began organizing a presence in order to deter workers from effectively blocking or demoralizing scabs, while spreading fears of bad media stories in the capitalist press. They told workers that these tactics were not needed and “enough damage” was already being done.

On day three, we adjusted our approach. By this time, it became clear that the 5 day strike would be coming to an end with none of the workers demands being met. Rank and file members had already begun calling for workers to vote for an “indefinite” strike in August. In response, CSAN created a leaflet encouraging this idea along with calling attention to the class nature of the nurses’ strike. Over the next two days 100-200 of these leaflets were distributed in picket lines in both Portland and Seaside. At its conclusion, frustrated with the way their union handled the strike, several Providence medical workers reached out to CSAN to join the coordination.