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Melissa Healy

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Melissa Healy is a partner in the firm’s Labor & Employment group and focuses on providing advice in employment law matters, representing management in employment litigation, and providing traditional labor support to employers, including in bargaining, arbitration, and before the National Labor Relations Board. She has been named one of the Portland Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” and a “Rising Star” by Oregon Super Lawyers.

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On May 10, 2023, the Oregon Health Authority (“OHA”) announced that, effective May 11, it is suspending the statewide rule requiring that health care workers be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they have an approved medical or religious exception. The news coincides with the end of the federal public health emergency on May 11, along with the anticipated end of the federal COVID-19 vaccination mandate for health care facilities certified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”).

The OHA stated that immediate suspension of the rule is necessary “to align with the end of the federal public health emergency and elimination of other COVID-19-related control measures, and because there is no longer a significant public health need for this rule.”

The OHA also stated:

The rationale for the rule when it was adopted was that COVID-19 was likely to be transmitted in these congregate settings, placing vulnerable persons at risk. [The Oregon mandate] is now being suspended, because immunity from the primary series is known to wane over time, such that 2 booster vaccinations have since been recommended for most persons. Moreover, the virus that causes COVID-19 has mutated such that the original series provides little longer-term protection against infection by currently circulating strains. Finally, at this point most people have been infected by the virus (94% by one estimate), giving survivors a degree of immunity at least equivalent to that provided by the original vaccination series for some period of time.Continue Reading Oregon Health Authority Suspends COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers

The National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) recently issued a decision in UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside that reverses longstanding Board precedent and holds that employers no longer have to allow nonemployee union representatives access to public areas of their property unless (1) the union has no other means of communicating with employees or (2) the employer discriminates against the union by allowing access to similar groups.

The UPMC case arose after the employer, a hospital, ejected two union representatives from its cafeteria, where they had been discussing organizational campaign matters with and providing union literature and pins to employees.  Previously and for many years, the Board had held that an employer could not restrict nonemployee union representatives from engaging in promotional or organizational activity in its public spaces, including cafeterias, so long as the union representatives were not “disruptive.”  In UPMC, the Board returned to a more common-sense approach and held that the National Labor Relations Act “does not require that the employer permit the use of its facility for organization when other means are readily available.”
Continue Reading NLRB Gives Employers Greater Discretion to Limit Union Activity on Their Premises

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The Health Law Insider blog provides insights about health care-related laws and regulations from Stoel Rives’ dedicated team of health care lawyers and industry experts. This blog covers the full spectrum of regulatory and compliance issues faced by the health care industry, including data privacy and security, fraud and abuse, reimbursement, health care transactions, antitrust, taxation, and insurance regulation.