July 29 Vaccine Bargaining Update

Local 328 member leaders and staff met with representatives of OHSU’s management on Thursday, July 29th to bargain the impact of OHSU Covid-19 vaccination policy. The issue is complicated because Oregon has a unique law that bars healthcare organizations from mandating vaccines as a condition of employment. While we absolutely want all our members who are medically eligible to get the vaccine, we also must protect the rights of our members and not allow OHSU to go beyond their authority. Oregon’s law must be dealt with by a legislative body, not employers. 

OHSU has communicated and came to the table with a vaccine mandate disguised as a “mandate to take an action.” Their options were as follows:

1. Get the vaccine. 

2.  Declare a medical exemption. (You had to prove the validity of the exemption by attending a doctor’s appointment which you paid for and on your own time.) 

3. Declare a nonmedical exemption. 

The declination options also include vaccination education modules, which we do believe is within the authority of the employer to require. 

If you had not accomplished one of these actions by OHSU’s first deadline you were placed on unpaid admin leave. If you had not taken one of these actions by the second deadline you were deemed to have resigned your position. OHSU’s position is that they did not have a duty to bargain the policy, only the “impact”, which in of itself is inconsistent with Oregon’s law in regard to public sector bargaining. 

Our solution was simple: follow the law. In doing so OHSU could require employees to declare they have received the vaccine or partake in an education module on paid time. Short, sweet and to the point, and consistent with their authority under Oregon law. We also proposed incentives and several policies on testing. At the end of the evening, the two teams had not come to an agreement. The teams were to meet again Monday evening August 2.

OHSU canceled the scheduled Monday bargaining session to further review our proposal. Today, OHSU released its policy, which is reflective of our proposal. We are very happy they have taken a more measured and legally defensible approach. However, it is disappointing that they have done so outside of the bargaining process and in a unilateral way. We have maintained that partnering on this issue would be better for everyone involved. Our next bargaining session is scheduled for Thursday, August 5th and we are hopeful OHSU is as willing to listen to us on incentives, as they were on the policy.