Bargaining Update: July 5
Ed. Note: The section re: tentative agreements has been corrected — we did reach some tentative agreements from this bargaining session. The author was given incorrect information about the status of these TAs.
First, thank you for a great rally last Thursday! We estimate that about 650 people came out to stand with our union in our fight for a good contract. Second, we’d like to bring to your attention the recently posted strike FAQ on our blog. Although our team is still working to reach an agreement at the table, we’re far enough into the bargaining process that many of you have questions about how we would call a strike and what would happen if we do. Lastly, we’d like to invite you to attend our next online bargaining forum, from 12 – 1 p.m. on Wednesday, July 13. You may register for the forum here.
The two teams met with the state mediator for the fourth time today. At this stage in bargaining, both parties typically make movement toward an agreement and focus their efforts on what’s most important to their constituents. Our bargaining team reduced some of our asks, but continues to hold firm on many other proposals — our movement is consistent with what our members have indicated are their priorities via our surveys and other means. Click on the links below to view the actual proposed contract language.
AFSCME Counterproposals:
8.1 Across-the-Board Increases: We continue to hold firm on our 9%/8%/8% ask, recognizing that high across-the-board raises are among our members’ highest priorities.
8.2.2 Longevity Rate: We continue to propose that the longevity rate be applied every five years, to aid in employee retention.
8.3. Merit-Based Adjustments: We reproposed adding language that clarifies that that employees may request a merit increase or lump-sum bonus at any time. Our proposed changes don’t obligate OHSU to provide these merit-based adjustments, but the employer has rejected them to date.
8.12 Retention Bonus: We reduced our retention-bonus ask by half, in an effort to show movement. We hope that OHSU will recognize that this language is important to aid in employee retention and reward loyal, long-term employees.
10.11 Weekend Differential: We continue to propose a differential of 10%, up to a maximum of $3.00/hour.
10.UX4 Preceptor Pay: We continue to propose our original language: a 10% preceptor differential, with all job classifications eligible.
12.1 Accrual of Vacation Time: We withdrew our requested increase in VAC hours, but have maintained our proposed changes that would enable employees to earn their VAC accruals more quickly.
23.8 Transmissions to Union: We reproposed adding job reclassifications and unpaid leave to the circumstances that require union notification.
MOU #7 Services for Employees Whose Primary Language Is Not English: We’re pleased with how this important MOU is coming together and hope to reach agreement on this language soon.
Holiday Package: In this package, we’ve withdrawn our request to add Veterans Day and the day after Thanksgiving to OHSU’s recognized holidays, contingent on management accepting our proposal to compensate employees whose work units close in full or in part on a day that falls outside the recognized holidays. We continue to ask for floating holidays for Juneteenth and Indigenous Peoples’ Day, but have rejected OHSU’s proposal to trade away President’s Day for them.
Employee Well-Being Package: This package includes language around sick-time accruals, mental-health leave and bereavement leave, and we made significant movement. We have withdrawn our mental-health leave proposal, are now asking for 40 additional hours of sick leave instead of 60 and have reduced our bereavement-leave ask from 56 hours to 40. (OHSU is proposing 0 additional SIK hours and only 12 hours of paid bereavement leave.)
Remote-Work Proposals: We reduced our proposed remote-work differential from $95/month to $50, withdrew the insurance ask from our out-of-state remote-work MOU and made other movement. We continue to reject OHSU’s proposed 28-day recall for fully remote workers and continue to push for OHSU to allow out-of-state remote work. We reproposed our language around work-life balance and maintaining a remote-work committee with union representation.
Tentative Agreements: Our team proposed TAs for about a dozen outstanding proposals. About half of these proposed TAs were for language that OHSU previously stipulated must be agreed to as a package rather than as individual TAs, since we had hoped management would agree to unpackaging the language in order to get some of these proposals off the table. The OHSU team wants to look at those TAs in more depth before agreeing, but we did reach agreement on the others, including:
2.10 Negotiating Team: We’ll be able to increase the size of our bargaining team from 13 to 14 members. We also established parameters for release time for bargaining-team members.
14.2.7 Catastrophic Event/Emergency Leave: Employees who need to miss work due to a declared state of emergency (e.g., wildfires) may request to do so; accruals may be used to cover the absences, and approved emergency-related absences would not be subject to attendance-related discipline.
The full text of all the TAs from this session can be read here.
OHSU Counterproposals: The management team’s proposals today included the following:
Revised Discipline & Grievances Package: OHSU presented a revised version of this package, based on a productive discussion the teams had last week.
Package re: Assigning Additional Work & Overtime: This package creates two new processes for assigning additional work and assigning overtime — one for when there’s more than 24 hours’ notice and one for when there’s less.
13.2 Attendance Recognition: OHSU has made some movement here, but continues to maintain the 2:1 conversion.
15.2 Insurance Contributions: OHSU is rejecting this proposal, which would base benefits dollars on an employee’s actual hours worked, not their official FTE.
MOU #UX9 Community Service Leave: OHSU continues to propose 8 hours of unpaid leave for this. (Management pointed out that this isn’t the same as just taking vacation to do community service, because employees may also use comp time or take the time unpaid.)
21.1 Reorganizations: OHSU is rejecting this proposal.
21.2 Classification & Reclassification Procedure: OHSU is rejecting this proposal.
21.3 Upward Reclassification: OHSU is rejecting this proposal.
MOU #UX11 Child-Care Task Force: OHSU is rejecting this proposal.
12.4.3 Submission/Granting of Vacation & Holiday Requests: OHSU presented an updated version of this language, which governs the process for requesting vacation time and holidays off.