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Workers at McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center plan to strike this week

More than 400 frontline healthcare workers at McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center in Springfield plan to go on strike this week.

The workers include housekeepers, certified nursing assistants, MRI technicians, and more. They say hospital management is interfering with their rights as union members. 

SEIU Local 49 members are working on a new contract. The union says understaffing, high-turnover, low wages, lack of affordable healthcare and lack of adequate COVID protections are putting workers and patients at risk.

The union says McKenzie-Willamette isn’t paying competitive wages and will be charging more for healthcare coverage. And the union is protesting hospital plans to outsource some services. 

The strike is set to go from Tuesday, October 5th until Thursday, October 7th.

Copyright 2021 KLCC. 

Rachael McDonald is KLCC’s host for All Things Considered on weekday afternoons. She also is the editor of the KLCC Extra, the daily digital newspaper. Rachael has a BA in English from the University of Oregon. She started out in public radio as a newsroom volunteer at KLCC in 2000.
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