Budget Talks Update
Update: As of 12 noon on Wednesday, May 13, Local 328 has not yet received a proposal from OHSU.
On Friday, May 1, the AFSCME Local 328 executive board met to discuss OHSU’s potential proposals around its COVID-19 related budget issues. During the meeting, the board voted unanimously to create a COVID-19 impact response team to receive, review and, ultimately, make a suggestion to the board on our union’s next steps. While no proposal has been received from OHSU at this time, we expect one by the middle of next week; in the meantime, we want to give our members some additional information about the budget talks and who will be participating.
The CIRT is composed of the following members:
Matt Hilton
Mike Bandy
Jennifer Barker
Jim Cherveny
Roger Clark
Claire Irvan
Ashley Larkin
Casey Parr
Michael Stewart
Karyn Trivette
Haley Wolford Davis
Kasey Zimmer-Stucky
Kate Baker (staff)
If these names look familiar, they should -- these folks capably served on our 2019 bargaining team and the board felt they were the best equipped to handle the processes and decision making that will go into assessing the upcoming proposal.
It is important to be clear -- this discussion is not bargaining. The CIRT has been assigned a specific, relatively limited task by our executive board -- to review OHSU’s proposal and supporting financial information and offer next-step guidance to our board. Our union has no obligation to accept, counter or even respond to OHSU’s proposal. We have a hard-won contract in place until 2022, and it is legally binding.
This process, at least procedurally, will be similar to our mid-contract PTO discussions in 2017. At that time, as had been agreed to in the contract, our union formed a task force to meet with HR to listen to OHSU’s PTO proposal for our bargaining unit. After that meeting, the Local 328 task force decided not to proceed with further discussions, due to the content of the proposal and because there was virtually no support for PTO amongst our members. This time, the CIRT will review OHSU’s proposal and ask questions of the employer. The team will then share information about the proposal and financial documentation to our membership. Members will be able to give feedback via online town halls (e.g., through Google Meet), a tele town hall (conducted by phone) and other forums.
Ultimately, the executive board will make the determination on whether to move forward to a membership vote. Per the AFSCME constitution, dues-paying members get to vote on a change to contractual benefits, which is what OHSU will likely ask for. If the Local 328 board decides a change is appropriate and an acceptable agreement can be made with OHSU, our members will vote on the proposed agreement. Regardless of the recommendations of the CIRT and the board, there will be no change to our wages or other benefits unless our members approve a change by majority vote.
We should receive OHSU’s proposal no later than Wednesday, May 13. As soon as the CIRT has had a chance to review the proposal, we will share information on OHSU’s finances and details from the proposal. We plan to hold our member town halls the week of May 18 and will share the dates and other details about these events as soon as possible. We know that OHSU’s budget troubles have caused anxiety within our bargaining unit -- rest assured that our union will be deliberate, thorough, responsible and, most importantly, democratic in our evaluation of OHSU’s proposal to us. Stay tuned and stay safe!