Behavioral health therapists vote to join the Oregon Nurses Association

More than 60 behavioral health therapists at Legacy’s Unity Center for Behavioral Health voted to join the Oregon Nurses Association on Sept. 16. The behavioral health therapists will join an existing ONA bargaining unit at Unity Center that includes clinical and recreational therapists, crisis intervention specialists, counselors, social workers and other workers.

The new bargaining unit represents more than 120 frontline mental and behavioral health professionals at Unity Center who are well positioned to advocate for the needs of both their patients and their colleagues ahead of Oregon Health & Science University’s announced acquisition of Legacy.

“We’re thrilled to join our union colleagues at Unity Center because together we are stronger. While the challenges we face may look different, we’re united in our work to improve patient care and raise standards so we can recruit and retain the health professionals our neighbors depend on,” said Meaghan Smith, a behavioral health therapist and ONA member at Unity Center. “With OHSU’s potential acquisition on the horizon, it’s more critical than ever for frontline workers to stand up and shape the future of healthcare to ensure patients remain our highest priority.”

The win for behavioral health therapists is part of a growing movement at Legacy Health. In the last two years, hundreds of Legacy's frontline providers, including doctors at six hospitals and advanced practice providers and nurses at various clinics, have voted to unionize under the ONA or the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association/AFT.

The previous group of clinical and recreational therapists, crisis intervention specialists, counselors, social workers and other professional workers at Legacy’s Unity Center joined ONA in August 2023 and began bargaining a first contract with Legacy on May 1, 2024. Behavioral health therapists will now join them at the bargaining table to advance their joint priorities of improving patient care, safety and staffing at Portland’s psychiatric emergency hospital—ensuring frontline caregivers have a voice in the future of the facility as OHSU’s acquisition looms.

ONA also represents more than 220 registered nurses at Unity Center. Frontline nurses began bargaining their second contract with Legacy in July.

“We congratulate the hard work of our behavioral health therapist colleagues and are honored to have them join our unit,” said Chrissy Corrigan, a crisis intervention specialist at Unity Center and ONA bargaining unit leader. “At Unity, we know that a union is no ‘third party,’ but, like high-quality patient care, the result of a powerful, collective effort: all of us, together. We are deeply invested in the well-being of both patients and the workers who serve them. With a strong union, we can retain and recruit a workforce that is actively supported and empowered to maintain the high standard of care our community deserves.”

Legacy’s Unity Center is a 24-hour behavioral and mental health services center in Portland offering inpatient mental health treatment and psychiatric emergency services. Since its inception in 2017, Legacy management has struggled to deliver on its lofty promises for Unity Center. Despite the monumental challenges faced by frontline mental and behavioral health professionals at Unity Center, they are proud of the high-quality, trauma-informed and multidisciplinary care they have provided to Oregon’s most vulnerable adults and adolescents.

Now, united through ONA, the providers say they can begin addressing key issues such as short staffing, increased patient numbers and community needs, the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, and a lack of support for mental and behavioral health services at the local, state and health system levels.

[Adrienne Coles/ONA press release]