What's in Our Contract So Far?

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This has been a very long bargaining season, and with so much still at stake, it’s easy to forget what gains we’ve already made. We wanted to remind folks of some highlights from the more than 100 tentative agreements that were reached earlier in our negotiations with OHSU. The following TAs will be part of our new contract once the bargaining process ends and the contract has been ratified:

Vacation/Sick Time/Paid Leave

  • Vacation Donation Pool: Eligible employees who miss work due to a medical emergency will qualify for vacation donations after 10 days’ absence instead of 14 days.

  • Notification of Sick-Time Usage: Management may not require employees to call in sick to more than two individuals or call more than twice; voicemail notification is allowed.

  • Test/Interview Leave: This leave will no longer be limited to promotional opportunities at OHSU, and employees may be granted an additional hour (for a total of three paid hours).

  • Pre-retirement Counseling Leave: This paid leave (up to 16 hours) will be now be available to UPP participants as well as PERS participants.

  • Catastrophic Event/Emergency Leave: Employees may request leave, which may not be unreasonably denied, in the event of a declared state of emergency; available accruals may be used, and approved use of this leave will not be subject to attendance-related discipline.

Differentials

  • Inclement Weather Team: This differential will increase from $10.00/hour to $12.00/hour.

  • Float Pool Differential: Employees in a designated float-pool position will now receive a differential of $1.00/hour.

Education/Training/Career Development

  • Skill-Development Opportunities: OHSU will notify employees of employer-provided development opportunities on an annual basis.

  • Labor-Management Committee Funding: OHSU will provide almost $4.3 million over the course of the contract to fund LMC activities, including work-unit LMCs and the Career and Workplace Enhancement Center.

  • Inclusion in Workforce-Development Initiatives: OHSU and Local 328 will meet twice yearly re: approaching the Oregon legislature for funding of workforce-development initiatives for underrepresented employees and marketing these initiatives to underrepresented bargaining-unit employees.

Miscellaneous

  • Diversity/Equity/Inclusion: This new section of the contract defines discrimination and harassment, abusive imagery, sexual harassment, bullying and workplace violence. It better outlines the process to handle complaints of discrimination or harassment, establishes interim actions (such as paid administrative leave) and lays out OHSU’s responsibilities re: ensuring employees’ safety from harassment, discrimination and violence. It will also require the employer to provide our union with a quarterly report re: harassment and discrimination cases at OHSU.

  • Services for Employees Whose Primary Language Is Not English: The parties will share the expense of translating key articles of the contract into five languages. Employees will be told of the availability of interpreting services when notified of an investigatory or grievance meeting. An O2 page will be developed that contains translated information on how to access information about key departments (such as Occupational Health, HR, Public Safety and Payroll). The parties will form a joint committee to develop solutions to better serve employees whose primary language is not English.

  • TriMet Passes: The first bus pass for new employees will now be offered at $25.00; OHSU will continue to offer $50.00 annual TriMet passes to existing employees.

  • Hardship Fund: OHSU will provide our union with $600,000 over the course of the contract to assist our represented employees with housing, transportation or food insecurity; half of these funds will be dedicated to assist with child-care insecurity.

  • Community-Service Leave: OHSU will provide eight hours of release time for employees to participate in community-service activities (vacation or comp time may be used, or the time may be taken unpaid).

  • Exit Interviews: Within one year of contract ratification, OHSU will offer exit interviews to bargaining-unit employees who are terminating their employment and will share the anonymized responses with our union if the employee has opted in.

Discipline/Grievances

  • Coaching: Coaching by management must be documented in writing and be shared with the employee within 10 business days of the coaching conversation.

  • Progressive Discipline: All discipline must be documented in writing. Suspension without pay will be limited to a maximum of 14 days. Pay reduction, demotion and withholding of pay increases will be removed as disciplinary options.

  • Notice of Investigatory Interview: The employer will be required to notify employees of the general reason for an investigatory interview (unless this would compromise the integrity of the investigation).

Employment Practices & Procedures

  • Removal of Personnel-File Materials: Managers will be advised to inform employees during the annual-review process of their right to have certain disciplinary items removed from their personnel file after a certain period, and disciplinary documentation will also reference this right.

  • Remote Work: The employer will provide standard equipment and technology to remote workers and these employees will not be required to use personal devices (except temporarily during emergencies or malfunction). Remote workers will not be required to use lunch breaks or unpaid time to return or retrieve OHSU equipment. The employer must meet with Local 328 to bargain any future out-of-state remote-work policy before it is finalized.

  • Travelers & Temporary Workers: The employer will meet with Local 328, at our request, several times each contract year to discussion potential means of reducing travelers and temps, and will provide data regarding their usage as part of these meetings.

Hours of Work

  • On-Call: Managers and employees will be encouraged to utilize the consensus process to develop procedures for assigning on-call that best meets the needs of the work unit. The employer will use best efforts to relieve any on-call employee who is on OHSU’s premises after 24 hours of continuous work.

  • Shift Trades: Hourly employees may trade shifts within the same pay period and salaried employees may trade shifts across pay periods.

  • Reorganizations: A work reorganization that significantly increases the hours worked by incumbent employees on an ongoing basis will trigger a management review of the work unit’s FTE needs.

Union Operations

  • New Employee Orientation: OHSU will inform new employees of the importance of our union’s portion of orientation, and will provide a link to the Local 328 website to sign up for Local 328 orientation.

  • Negotiating Team: Our union may add an additional member to our bargaining team for future negotiations.

  • Negotiations for New Contract: The parties will begin regularly bargaining the first full week of February (one month earlier than before) and hold our first mediation session no later than the last full week in May (one week earlier than before).

Jennifer Barker15 Comments