Home
News
All Practice Advocacy Union WSNA Statements Press releases Media coverage
Illustration ulp

PeaceHealth barred from threatening to take healthcare from striking workers

This win protects all union employees in the health system regardless of which union represents them.

This story appears in the April 2026 edition of The Washington Nurse.

• 2 minutes to read

This month, the PeaceHealth system agreed to settle a charge WSNA filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over repeated threats to revoke health insurance for striking workers.

The settlement states that PeaceHealth will not “unlawfully state you will lose health insurance coverage if you engage in union activity, including striking” and covers every facility in the PeaceHealth system.

“This is a big win for nurses and every other union worker at PeaceHealth,” said Edna Cortez, chair of WSNA’s Labor Executive Council. “We stood up to a multi-state system and put a stop to their unlawful practice of using the threat of losing health insurance to try and stop workers from exercising their lawful right to strike.”

“
This is a big win for nurses and every other union worker at PeaceHealth.”
— Edna Cortez, chair of WSNA’s Labor Executive Council

WSNA attorneys could not have done it without their members, added WSNA Labor Counsel Kelly Skahan. “They were our eyes, ears, and brains on the ground.”

Members immediately alerted WSNA when PeaceHealth administrations started making these threats. They gathered media coverage and emails to employees to document the threats. Several members spoke with NLRB investigators, delineating how the threats affected co-workers' willingness to engage in union activity. And they committed to testifying as witnesses if the charge were litigated in an unfair labor practice hearing.

As a condition of the settlement, PeaceHealth must post an official signed notice by April 15 in every facility in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska listing workers' rights under the National Labor Relations Act and stating that they will not threaten workers' health insurance benefits if they engage in union activity, including striking.

WSNA filed an unfair labor practice in October 2023 after PeaceHealth’s statements to employees and the media during a strike at PeaceHealth Southwest in Vancouver and PeaceHealth St. John in Longview organized by the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professions (OFNHP). OFNHP represents more than 1,700 techs, janitorial employees, and other workers at both facilities.

During the strike, PeaceHealth threatened to pull health benefits from striking employees, citing the move in statements to the press as its “standard practice that applies to any caregiver (union-represented or not).”

WSNA filed the charge because it represents nurses at multiple PeaceHealth facilities, including PeaceHealth Southwest and PeaceHealth St. John, the hospitals where OFNHP was striking. This win protects all union employees in the system regardless of which union represents them.

Postings will go up not just in hospitals or other unionized facilities, but in every PeaceHealth worksite in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, the three states where the system operates. The postings must go up by April 15 and must stay up for at least 60 days without being obscured, defaced, or hidden.