Fifteen years later, he’s an emergency room nurse and chair of the Oregon Nurses Association’s bargaining unit at Providence Portland Medical Center. Some version of a health care staffing law has been in place since 2001, Oregon Nurses Association Director of Professional Practice Christy Simila told the Northwest Labor Press. In 2015, a new staffing law, Oregon Senate Bill 469, created committees made up of equal numbers of direct-care nurses and managers. But in a compromise with the unions, they got some flexibility to adjust staffing ratios if workers and management agreed, and the bill passed. Most of them have been against OHSU, Providence Portland Medical Center, Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, and Sacred Heart Medical Center Riverbend.