Mediation Update: August 22

Since our strike vote opened, we’ve heard from a number of members who say they voted via text message. Our strike vote is being conducted online and via paper ballot only — if you didn’t vote in one of these two ways, you haven’t voted. (The text that was sent several weeks ago asking about your willingness to strike was not the actual vote.)

We don’t want to end up with a bad contract because people mistakenly thought they had already voted (or because they didn’t think they needed to vote since member support for a strike is overwhelming strong).  

Please click here for information on how to confirm that you’ve voted, and vote here if you haven’t yet done so. Voting is open until 9 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 26. Thank you for your support!

The teams spent another 12 hours in mediation today. OHSU presented a confidential economic supposal in the morning, and our union’s team presented our confidential economic supposal, and a DEI counterproposal, to OHSU around 8:30 p.m. Late in mediation it’s typical to exchange confidential supposals. This (a) allows the teams to signify what movement they might be willing to make if certain conditions are meant, without being bound to what’s proposed and (b) ensures that folks don’t get excited or angry about details that might be taken off the table soon (a team’s position might go up and down from supposal to supposal). 

Unfortunately, this means that we’ve been unable to share details with our members recently. We understand that folks are likely frustrated by this — our team wishes that we had details to share with you! Please be assured that our team is still fighting hard for things like: 

  • High ATB wage increases

  • More time off

  • Protections from excessive on-call

  • Protections from excessive mandatory overtime

  • New/higher differentials

  • Preceptor pay

  • Improvements for salaried employees

We should be able to share more details with you on Friday, when we’ll be holding our next mediation session.

Shortly before we wrapped up for the night, OHSU’s team informed us in a sidebar that they were changing their confidential supposal to a proposal and would be publishing it. (OHSU’s proposal can be viewed here.) Key points of OHSU’s latest proposal include:

  • ATB wage increases:

    • Year 1: 4% second full pay period after ratification, 1% first full pay period after Jan. 1, 2023

    • Year 2: 3% first full pay period after July 1, 2023, 0.5% first full pay period after Jan. 1 2024

    • Year 3: 3% first full pay period after July 1, 2024

  • Ratification bonus

  • Sick time: no increase

  • Longevity rate: no change

  • Progression increases: no increase

  • Weekend differential: $1.50/hour

  • ANI: 25% or $10.00/hour, whichever is greater

Jennifer Barker177 Comments