Bargaining Update: May 24
Bargaining Survey: Our mid-bargaining survey has launched! Check out our earlier blog post for ways to take the survey. Please complete the survey as soon as you can — member feedback at this stage of bargaining is vital to the decisions our union’s bargaining team will be making over the coming weeks.
Today’s Negotiations: Today was our first session with the state mediator. Each team met with her separately to share our thoughts on how bargaining has been going. The mediator was present when our team made our presentations to OHSU, and the teams also met with her separately to debrief. The Local 328 team had a working lunch, meeting with Oregon AFSCME staff to discuss strategies for the remainder of bargaining.
We reached tentative agreements on the following proposals: 7.12 Modified Operations, 20.2.4 Modified Progressive Discipline and Appendix G Guidelines on Reaching Consensus.
Last week, OHSU presented an all-or-none 65-page proposal package, which primarily addressed economic language. While it included some language that we probably could have reached tentative agreement on right away, it also included things like the 2% across-the-board increases, so we responded “none.” We asked the management team to come back to us with something different: the proposals unpackaged or grouped into smaller sets, the non-economic language separated from the economic proposals, etc.
Local 328 re-presented our entire set of original diversity, equity and inclusion proposals (along with our response to a DEI-related OHSU proposal). As we mentioned in a recent blog post, our union views OHSU’s rejection of these proposals, in favor of shunting them to the Covington committees, as an example of the employer kicking the can down the road. These issues are too important to simply say “we’ll have a committee take a look at this,” with no time frame, especially since we’ve all seen how that typically goes at OHSU — we need language in our contract now that gives our union the power the hold abusers and racists accountable. Our DEI proposals can be viewed here.
We made the following additional counterproposals:
5.X.1 Coaching: We added a clarification to OHSU’s last proposal and feel we’re close to agreement here.
8.6 Upward Adjustments: We again rejected OHSU’s proposal for this language to apply to groups of employees in addition to single employees.
9.X Sign-on Bonuses: OHSU had proposed sign-on bonuses for new employees. We’re agreeable to that, but added language stating that when a new employee receives a sign-on bonus, existing employees in the same classification would receive an equal bonus, in the interest of parity.
10.1 Shift Differential: We accepted a number of OHSU’s proposed changes and proposed increases to the differentials. We’ve kept the percentage amounts the same, but asked for the per-hour amount to increase to $2.50 for evening differential and $4.50 for night differential. View the details here.
11.2 Holiday Compensation: We accepted OHSU’s improvement to this language, and added a section stating that when an individual work unit closes around a holiday, employees would be paid for that missed time rather than have to use vacation time to cover it.
14.1.7 Pre-Retirement Counseling Leave: We made a small change to OHSU’s last proposal and feel we’re close to agreement here.
18.3 Non-Temporary Transfer to Separate Location: We rejected OHSU’s proposal to consider Marquam Hill and the South Waterfront to be one location for the purposes of non-temporary transfers.
20.2.1 Internal Job Change Evaluation Period: We proposed language easing the probation-period requirements for employees transitioning from a relief or flex job to a regular position in the same work unit. Click here for details.
23.3.1 Notice re: Investigatory Interviews: We made a minor clarification to OHSU’s last proposal and are close to agreement here.
23.6 Unauthorized Absences + 5.UX13 Without Authorized Leave: While we agree with the “without authorized leave” definition and most of the changes to 23.6, we’re still asking for an increase to the number of unauthorized days an employee can miss in a year before they’re deemed to have resigned.
MOU #18 Task Force on Workplace Mental Health Support: We want to breathe new life into this MOU from 2019 and have asked OHSU to invest in our members’ well-being the way it does for faculty and students. Our full proposal can be viewed here.
We rejected these OHSU proposals:
MOU EX1 Pandemic/Emergency/Disaster Bargaining: OHSU had proposed adding the following language to our contract: “In the event of a declared state of emergency or disaster, the parties agree to negotiate effects of any necessary changes within a reasonable time after the requesting party provides notice to the other party.” The employer already has the ability to open mid-contract bargaining in these circumstances, through Article 3 of our current contract, so we believe this language is unnecessary.
MOU re: Overtime/Differential Waivers: OHSU has proposed pulling the forms for voluntary waivers of daily overtime and shift differentials out of our contract and moving the process online. We rejected this proposal for second time because we want our members — especially those who don’t work with computers on the job — to still have the paper option, and we prefer our union to have some oversight of the process.
LOA re: OHSU Scribes: OHSU proposed a letter of agreement to bring scribes into our bargaining unit (which is called accretion). We want to bring these workers into our bargaining unit, but rejected this LOA because we have a standard accretion agreement and these agreements are approved by our union’s executive board — we prefer to follow the usual process.
OHSU made no counterproposals this session. May 31 will be a work day for both teams. There won’t be another mediation session prior to mid-June, due to the mediator’s availability.
June Bargaining Forum: Our next forum will be held from 12 – 1 p.m. on Wednesday, June 22. Register here.