AI Is Changing Our Workplace. Your Union Is Fighting to Protect You.

I want to provide an update on our current AI fight, and what interim bargaining is. Hopefully, this will get everyone up to speed and ready to fight.


Artificial Intelligence is rapidly implemented in our workplace. This is coming from a top-down strategic initiative OHSU has undertaken to implement AI literacy within their workforce. And while it is true there are some aspects of work that might be improved by AI, the larger concern is the real risk for jobs, de-skilling, workloads, and surveillance.


Workers deserve a voice before these technologies reshape how we do our jobs. Your union has issued a demand to bargain over OHSU’s AI implementations.  We want to get contract language in place that will protect your jobs, your skills, your wages, and your rights in the workplace. Over the past year we've watched AI move from isolated projects to organization-wide planning. Leadership has announced strategic goals, created implementation groups, developed AI education initiatives, and begun incorporating AI into operational planning 


Interim bargaining might be unfamiliar to most of us. Normally, our wages and working conditions are negotiated during contract negotiations. There are times, however, where the employer might attempt to change one of the Big 3 Mandatory Subjects Of Bargaining - Wages, Hours, or Working Conditions during the course of the contract. Your union and the employer then can negotiate the impact of those changes for 90 days of bargaining. 


In a bit more detail - the employer can’t make significant changes to wages/hours/working conditions without giving your union proper notice of those changes. The notice is received and then we meet for 90 days, after which the changes are implemented, or new agreements are settled. One point I want to make very clear - The Employer notifies Your Union of that change to wages/hours/working conditions and then we can bargain. Historically in labor that may be something as small as changes to the locations of water fountains, changes in the price or location of vending machines, or etc… and then your union can negotiate the impact of those changes.


Rewinding, we first sought to get a representative from your union seated onto OHSU’s AI governance committee. To date, that has been Angelo Bologna - Chief Steward while we wait to appoint a more permanent person. We sought this under the suspicion there were a number of AI projects being worked on that we weren’t receiving the legal notice for. We settled with OHSU on having a seat on that committee in March 2026. 


Based on the information gathered there, we felt there had been material changes to working conditions and attempted to engage in interim bargaining on May 12th. We were told by the employer that the request was “anticipatory in nature” and “premature.” So we put ears to the ground and asked all of you to come back to us with your AI uses in your workplace so we could provide concrete examples to the employer. I appreciate everyone who came to us with stories of AI implementations in their work areas.


Again, I want to highlight, the legal responsibility is for the employer to tell us, not for us to find these things out on our own. They did not feel any AI project had passed a change to wages/hours or working conditions. We assert that they have.


We issued a second demand to bargain on May 22nd telling the employer of all the AI projects we had learned about. The employer agreed to meet under the framework of interim bargaining.


Our first meeting was contentious. OHSU maintained that the legal threshold hadn’t been met, and stated they were not interested in any new contract language (does that sound in good faith?). Fully knowing this would be their position we prepared a list of the known AI projects we felt had passed the threshold - Insurance Appeals AI, Periop Surgical Calls, the AIGC strategic plans, AI prior auths for pharmacy, AI being used to generate performance metrics in GROW convos, and the other stories we gathered from our membership. As well, we stated our position - the employer has engaged in what we consider to be an unfair labor practice/ULP by not disclosing these AI projects to us and by denying our demand to bargain. One way an employer can violate labor law is by refusing to provide information the union needs to represent employees. If the employer withholds relevant information, it prevents meaningful bargaining. We assert they have been in violation and have impeded meaningful bargaining. 


We are fully prepared to move the ULP forward with the state’s Employee Relations Board. That process will take months and winning/losing that case will be up to our attorneys. I’m stating it here to inform everyone of the legal pressure we hold… but the real win (of protective contract language!) will be won through organizing your work groups around this issue, and supporting our interim bargaining. 


We filed a broad RFI to try and catch all the projects we didn’t know about. To date we have looked over 200 of them. There are quite a few that have changed people’s working conditions, wages, schedules, or are involved in employee surveillance. The employer responded by asking us to sign a non-disclosure agreement. As has been the case the entire time - the employer wants to keep this information hidden from us. 


Why? Because it will/has absolutely changed your working conditions. If it allows the employer to layoff staff, they will do it. If it allows them to streamline scheduling so you don’t get that 30 minutes of incremental overtime on a busy week, they will do it. From the O2 page on OHSU’s Center For AI Enabled Learning - Every time a patient visits OHSU, we collect data, safely and privately, about their condition, treatment and outcomes. Our learning health system gathers this data and applies AI tools to find patterns. These patterns help us see what works best and for which patients. 


They are training their LLM on every patient interaction, every outcome, and every piece of work that you touch at OHSU. Much like every other bargaining cycle, you are the workers who keep this hospital running, and they are actively taking your work and pushing it through their LLMs. You can view this on 02 under the Private Secure Large Language Model and their Center for AI Enabled Learning.


Here’s what we are fighting for:

  • Worker involvement in AI implementations - committee seats, feedback process, error tracking

  • Transparency in AI projects 

  • Notice before implementations

  • Protections against deskilling, layoffs, displacement, and such

  • Limitations on surveillance

  • Protections on professional judgement

  • Protection of bargaining-unit work

  • Fair workload standards


If you want to win protective contract language, you need to be engaged in this process.

  • AI Workforce Survey - https://forms.gle/7hTsw7HgJ75oCH2y8

  • Stay informed - we will be posting blog updates after the bargaining sessions

  • Share what you’re seeing - if AI tools are being introduced in your department, tell your steward so they can bring it back to us

  • Stay tuned for the announcement of AFSCME 328’s AI committee meetings

  • Stand together - the stronger member participation is, the stronger our bargaining power


Technology will continue to evolve. Our contracts and our rights must evolve with it. Every member deserves transparency, a voice in workplace change, and protections that keep technology working for people rather than replacing or diminishing them. No AI could replace the work you do for the operations of this hospital.


We will meet with OHSU tomorrow for our next bargaining session. 


The fight continues!

Solidarity

AB


Local 328Comment