Bargaining-Session Update: May 28

Attend our bargaining rally and BBQ! Join your coworkers at this family-friendly rally on Thursday, June 13, starting at 4:00 p.m. on the Mac Hall lawn. Join us for all or part of the gathering. This fun event will be one of the best tools we have, short of a strike, to show OHSU the strength of our opposition to the take-backs it has proposed. Please RSVP here! (A flyer for you to print/share can be found in the blog post before this one.)OHSU’s bargaining forums with HR director Hollie Hemenway have been announced! The first event will be held on Wednesday, June 5, from 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. in Richard Jones Hall rm. 4320, and the second on Wednesday, June 19, from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. in the Doernbecher 11th floor Vey Auditorium. Both of these venues hold ~150 people — let’s pack the rooms like we did for our May 22 town hall! We encourage our members to attend (wearing green and wearing your AFSCME buttons and stickers, of course) and respectfully engage as OHSU presents information about its proposals.

If you are upset by OHSU’s take-backs and its rejection of our economic proposals, you must act to keep them from becoming reality: take our bargaining survey, show up at the town halls, show up at the rally, wear your union stickers and make sure your coworkers know about the type of contract OHSU is proposing for us.

OHSU proposes financial take-backs every contract because it thinks our members will just accept it, but you have the power to say “enough is enough” and prove OHSU wrong. Our members deserve a fair contract with no take-backs, and we have the power to get it. 

The bargaining teams worked on our own today, without the services of the state mediator, and are pleased to report that we had a productive day, with movement made on both sides. The teams reached tentative agreements on the following sections of the contract:

    • Article 2: The teams reached agreement on a number of changes that will strengthen our steward program: (a) improving release time for officers, (b) increasing the number of steward hours in certain cases and (c) allowing additional stewards in departments to cover swing and graveyard shifts. We clarified with OHSU what the current practice is re: stewards and overtime, and there will be no changes to the current practice.

    • 2.9.1 Union Communications: Local 328 will continue to provide HR with an advance copy of our emails under some circumstances, with no such requirement for communications sent to all dues-paying members during bargaining.

    • Preferential Hire List (sections 5.10/5.20/18.2.4/19.7/20.2.6/20.2.8): We agreed on improved language in a number of sections of the contract related to the preferential hire list, such as improving the amount of time an employee has on the PHL when returning to work after extended medical leave. In addition, timelines in the PHL process will be paused in the event that OHSU is in a hiring freeze.

    • 6.1.3.1 Code of Conduct Complaints: This new language gives employees a mechanism to report to bullying, intimidation and harassment not related to protected classes to the union (or to the Integrity Department or HR). This is companion language to our earlier agreement that will allow employees to report discrimination and harassment to the union (or to the AAEO Department, Integrity Department or HR).

    • 23.3.1 Notice: This section of the contract relates to the amount of notice our union receives when an investigatory interview will be scheduled during off` hours (7:00 p.m. - 7:00 a.m.). The new language will better enable our union to provide representation to employees who don’t work the day shift. 

    • 24.1.5 Grievance Steps: The teams agreed to language that will allow the union to file a limited request for information within seven days of filing a grievance. This added language will help move the grievance process along in a more timely manner.

    • Preferential Hire List Task Force Memorandum of Understanding: With this MOU, OHSU and Local 328 agree to form a joint task force to ensure that employees and managers understand the requirements, responsibilities and steps necessary to successfully complete the PHL placement process.

Our union also presented OHSU with the following counterproposals:

    • Appendix C — Employee Benefits Council: We continue to reject OHSU’s proposal to remove the decision-making authority of this committee, and re-proposed that the presidential tie-breaker provision be removed from the language. We continue to believe that decisions about benefits-plan design should be made in a collaborative manner, hearing all voices at the table.

    • OHSU/AFSCME Task Force on Workforce Mental Health Support MOU: We proposed some tweaks to OHSU’s counterproposal to our language. This task force would develop a position description for and oversee the hiring of an OHSU-employed internal counselor to support on-site group counseling/support in the wake of tragic/difficult events (death of a coworker, death of a long-time patient, etc.) that affect a work unit, as well as create a training program for interested members to recognize PTSD symptoms and to provide critical-incident group debriefings to employees in affected work units. The teams are close to agreement on this MOU.

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