Lawsuit filed against Providence claims wages lost

“This has led to lost wages and benefits for nurses and frontline healthcare workers including but not limited to unpaid hours, unpaid overtime, unpaid differentials, unpaid certification pay and other lost hours and benefits. Individual impacts range from nurses missing a few dollars to workers missing entire paychecks,” according to the press release.

ONA said the class action lawsuit “seeks to recover lost wages and damages owed to all workers at Providence including nurses, allied health workers, technicians, housekeepers, food services staff, doctors and other workers who have suffered from Providence’s failure to pay workers the wages they are owed.

“More than 200 frontline nurses who are victims of Providence’s wage theft have already signed on to the class action lawsuit and thousands of other nurses and healthcare workers have been negatively impacted by Providence’s unpaid wages,” reads the press release. “Workers who have been victims of Providence’s wage theft but who are not named in the lawsuit will still benefit from a fair settlement. The lawsuit is filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court. While the exact amount of theft is too large to determine without a comprehensive audit, lost wages and penalties could be in the millions.”

Providence responded to the Genesis-related pay discrepancy announcement from ONA the same day, saying in a statement, “Providence apologizes to its caregivers and their families who have been affected by recent paycheck issues. We take these issues incredibly seriously and we are working daily to identify and resolve reported issues. To ensure our caregivers are kept whole during this unfortunate disruption, we are running off-cycle paycheck batches daily as needed, with the correct retroactive pay.

“Here’s what happened: In early July, Providence implemented a new enterprise resource planning system — known as Genesis — to improve administrative processes, including human resources, timekeeping, and payroll,” the statement continued. “Previously, multiple systems, including some outdated technology, had been used resulting in a fragmented experience and requiring manual processes.”

“It would be a problem if this happened to a handful of workers,” said ONA Executive Committee Chair at Providence Portland Medical Center Richard Botterill, RN. “This is an out-and-out disaster. Providence is paying frontline nurses and health care workers pennies on the dollar and keeping the difference. This is a multi-billion dollar company cheating nurses and working families out of their hard-earned livelihoods. Robbing workers of the money they rely on for food, rent and basic needs is unacceptable. It’s a simple solution. Providence needs to pay frontline health care workers the money they’ve earned.”

According to Providence, less than 2% of Providence caregivers in Oregon continue to experience incorrect pay specifically related to pay differentials and premium pay. This includes Hood River, where multiple Providence sites and positions were affected.

“These remaining issues are being resolved as quickly as possible,” said the statement. “Oregon Nurses Association (ONA)’s suggestions that Providence is ‘robbing workers’ and intentionally underpaying its caregivers are completely and utterly false.”

ONA reported bringing concerns about Providence’s payroll system change to management months ago.

“Providence assured nurses the system had been thoroughly tested,” the ONA press release said. “As frontline workers began losing pay and continued raising concerns — including filing more than 90,000 HR payroll tickets pointing out Providence’s mistakes — Providence management again assured nurses the problems would be quickly fixed. However, nurses and workers have now gone more than three full pay periods without a comprehensive resolution.”

“Again, we deeply regret that some valued caregivers, and their families, have had to bear any financial hardship, anxiety or disruption as a result of this transition,” reads the Providence statement. “As an employer, providing accurate and timely pay for caregivers’ time and talents is one of the most fundamental roles we play.

“The Providence Mission calls us to care for all. This includes our caregivers,” it continued. “We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to resolve the remaining outstanding issues as quickly as possible. We also remain profoundly grateful to our caregivers for their patience and for all they do to serve patients in need.”