5/14 Bargaining Session -- Agreements on Disciplinary Records and Filling of Vacancies

The bargaining teams reached two agreements today. The agreements produced gains for employees by offering new protections for members trying to promote or transfer, as well as gains for employees who are doing extra work because of unfilled vacancies taking too long to fill, without sacrificing the priority given to internal candidates.Disciplinary RecordsThis tentative agreement provides some important protection for members and a change that was important to the management team.

• The personnel file will be split into two portions: (1) the active file and (2) the archive file.
• NEW! Only Human Resources staff will have access to the archive file; supervisors and other OHSU personnel will NOT have access except in the case of an employee being considered for discharge for cause.
• Upon request by the employee, any written discipline will be removed from the active file after two years and placed in the archive file, except for written reprimands or higher for theft, willful misrepresentation, conduct threatening or endangering the safety of others, discrimination or assault/violence. (These exceptions are the same as in the current contract.)
• Even if the employee does not request removal of it, disciplinary information older than two years may not be used in progressive discipline except for discharge.
• NEW! Disciplinary records moved to the archive file are not available to supervisors or managers for discipline, promotion, lateral transfer or voluntary demotion.

This maintains protection for employees who have been disciplined in the past and have improved their performance.Filling of VacanciesThis tentative agreement includes changes that will speed up the process of hiring regular employees and filling training positions, but retains current contract protections giving internal candidates priority. The agreement includes:

• The job-bid trial-service period has been eliminated.
• Internal job openings will be either posted in the work unit OR emailed to all eligible bargaining-unit employees in a work unit.
• It will be made clear that the training-position qualifications in the contract are minimum qualifications and that managers may set additional qualifications.
• Internal applicants will be considered first for training positions.
• OHSU will be allowed to simultaneously post a vacancy and recruit and interview both internal and external applicants, BUT the contract language will continue to state that external candidates may be hired only if there are no well-qualified internal candidates.

The effect of this agreement will be to allow vacancies to be filled more quickly (hopefully relieving some of our members’ concerns re: workload due to positions being unfilled for extended periods) while maintaining the preference and priority for internal candidates.