Bargaining Update: March 11th
Today our bargaining team spent the morning buttoning up proposals to pass in the afternoon. In addition to the language that each group passed, interim President Steve Stadum joined us to discuss the regulatory climate and how OHSU is planning for what might happen as federal funding becomes less reliable.
For those who joined us for the livestream, we appreciate your patience getting the Zoom meeting to work through the room’s setup. The link to our recording will be added to this post as soon as it is ready.
Stadum read some prepared remarks regarding the changes we’ve seen, the challenges that Oregon and other states have filed to prevent the implementation of illegal executive orders, and other possible cuts to funding. Much of this was stated in his previous emails and announcements, but our team appreciated him taking the time to meet with us.
New proposals we passed to OHSU:
5.X Occurrence: Adding a definition to ensure that the standard for what is considered an occurrence is clearly defined and reasonable.
5.X 10.5 Lead Work: Defined lead work to better capture the tasks that should be considered for the differential. Updated the amount of time you need to do lead work to qualify for the differential (4 non-consecutive hours in a day or 20 hours in a week) and added a provision that would automatically assign a lead if there is no supervisor present and someone needs to complete those tasks
6.16 Communication Systems: Ensures that employees who are required to carry a pager or similar device for work purposes be supplied one by OHSU. You shouldn’t be required to use your personal device in anything but emergency situations.
6.16.1 Replacement of Devices: Ensures that employees who are issued a communications device by OHSU can request a replacement every two years at no cost if it needs to be replaced due to wear and tear. Once per contract, they can replace a lost or stolen device at no cost.
6.16.2 System Failures: Ensures that employees are not held accountable for issues caused by OHSU system failures.
7.7 Time Off Between Shift or Hours Worked in Callback: This has been called “double back” in ONA’s contract and elsewhere for many years. We’re bringing our contract in line with the common industry practice and understanding. Also simplified the language to make it easier to understand and increased from a straight rate of pay to time and a half for any shift where someone is called back after a shortened rest period.
7.8 10.2 10.3 10.4 On-Call Package: Greatly simplified this language. Added language to cover on-call after being curtailed or otherwise having your shift canceled. Changed structure to pay $8 per hour of on-call rather than one hour of base pay per six hours on-call. If you’re on-call for more than 48 hours, this increases to $10. After 60 hours, it increases to $12. This matches ONA’s language. When called in, employees will be paid a minimum of two hours and be paid time and a half for all hours worked. Holidays worked from on-call will be paid at double time. In-house standby would go from $5 to your hourly rate of pay plus an additional $5 per hour. If called back in to work from in-house standby, employees will be paid at time and a half with all appropriate differentials.
9.1.4 Overtime Scheduling: Updated language to give priority to employees who are able to take an entire shift of overtime. Updated definition of mandatory overtime to make it so that any amount of OT would apply, not just assignments of more than 4 hours. Makes it explicit that mandatory overtime would be paid at regular overtime plus any ANI or other incentives that had been offered to fill that shift. Mandatory OT should never happen without management offering ANI to fill a shift of one hour or more.
10.1 Shift Differential: Increase evening differential from 7% to 9% with a minimum of $1.76 per hour (increase from $1.36). Increase night shift from 12.5% to 15.5% with a minimum of $3 per hour (increase from $2.65).
10.9 Transport Work: Increase bonus from $75 to $100 and accidental death and dismembership insurance from $500,000 to $1,000,000.
10.11 Weekend Differential: Increase from $1.50 an hour to $3 per hour.
10.12 Preceptor Pay: Increased from $1 to $3 an hour. Explicitly stated that positions that fit the description but may not be captured in our list would be eligible for preceptor pay. We added a few positions (Certified Nursing Assistant, Certified/Clinical Veterinary Technician, Dental Assistant, Medical Assistant, Pharmacy Technician, Veterinary Research/Health Technician) and OHSU advised us that they also have positions they want to add to this list.
10.14.1 Additional Need Incentive: Increase from a minimum of 30% to a minimum of 50% per hour (with a minimum dollar amount of $20 per hour [increased from $10 per hour]). Once a shift has been offered as ANI, its status can not be revoked.
Counters we passed to OHSU:
5.5 Consensus Agreements: We accepted clarifying language, but pushed back on management’s attempts to limit our consensus rights.
OHSU’s Counters:
2.12 and 29.2 Negotiations: OHSU is willing to give us a full work day each week of bargaining rather than 8 hours. This will cover employees who normally work longer shifts. They would like to keep current contract language regarding work units where more than one person is elected to the bargaining team. Currently, OHSU pays for the first person and our union pays for any additional members on the team. They would like to meet in the middle on the dates we start bargaining and when we have to have our initial proposals in.
23.7 Administrative Leave: They continue to push back on a definition of when paid administrative leave can be used and on the concept of any kind of “penalty” pay for employees who are placed on paid admin leave for extended periods of time. They do agree to the idea of paying someone if they’re placed on unpaid administrative leave due to an accusation that ends up being unfounded but want to narrow this to only apply when OHSU is the one conducting the investigation.
5.41 and 5.42 Temporary Non-Bargaining Unit Worker: This is our attempt to capture what a traveler is for the purposes of our contract and ensure that none of our workers are curtailed before a temp or traveler is. We’re aligned with management on the need to define these workers, but they still want more flexibility than we’re comfortable with in assigning work to them and in the length of their contracts. While we would like this to match 5.41 Temporary Employees (a period of time not to exceed 1,040 hours in a calendar year, unless an extension has been granted for a single 6 month period), they have pushed back on that.
Next week our team will have a work day and will not be meeting with management to trade proposals. While that means you can expect that there won’t be a lot to share next Tuesday, there will be another huge update on March 25th.
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