$25K Win for Flex Employees

During AFSCME Local 328’s contract negotiations in 2019, we won new language that gave employees a differential for working on the weekends:

10.11 Weekend Differential — A differential of fifty cents ($0.50) per hour shall be paid to employees for all hours actually worked between 11:00 p.m. Friday through 11:00 p.m. Sunday.

Shortly after this contact language went into effect, a Local 328 member who is a flex employee noticed that she wasn’t getting her additional pay, so our union brought it to the attention of Human Resources. After a significant delay, we were advised by HR that if any flex employee hadn’t received weekend differential, it was an isolated error.

Casey Parr, Local 328 executive-board member and 2019 bargaining-team member, asked a few other flex employees to look at their pay stubs and found that none of them were receiving their weekend-differential pay. Thanks to the diligence of the member who initially noticed the error and the union representatives she contacted, it was discovered that 179 former and current employees had been impacted and missed out on more than $12,800 total pay.

OHSU agreed to pay double the missed pay to make our represented employees whole. Former employees who were impacted were mailed a check, and current employees who were impacted were notified via OHSU Now:

“It has recently come to our attention that we inadvertently miscalculated some employees’ pay for weekend shifts. Although OHSU paid employees for all worked time, the weekend differentials were accidentally omitted from your payroll payments. We did not intend to miscalculate the differentials and we apologize for the error.

We have audited our timekeeping and payroll practices and applied corrections as needed. As part of those corrections, we are issuing you a payment that represents the weekend differentials for your shifts worked between Friday 11 p.m. and Sunday 11 p.m. starting Sept. 30, 2019 and up to March 14, 2021. The amount will be included in your April 16 pay and will be processed as double of the total owed, in recognition of the error and its potential impact.

Please contact us with any questions or concerns by emailing paycheck@ohsu.edu.

Thank you for your understanding.

OHSU Payroll

This message is being sent to employees whose weekend differential was accidentally omitted.”

While it took time to respond, we thank OHSU for doing the right thing when our union pointed out the error. This is a great win for all of our workers, showing that when we stand up and make our voices heard, we get results.