Bargaining Update for 5/13/2025
We still haven’t heard back about financial proposals, but both teams made progress towards responding to everything on our plates.
AFSCME Counters:
5.12 Extended Medical Leave: We passed this back with “at the Employer’s discretion” crossed out again. This has not been a problem in the past and we’re not interested in creating problems in the future.
5.19 Onboarding: We changed “Orientation” to “Onboarding.” This continues our effort to separate out the types of training so that everyone is compensated properly for their work sharing their skills with students and coworkers.
5.23 Preceptor: Both teams passed this language last week. We further refined the last version OHSU sent to us. We want to be sure the language captures the times when someone wasn’t specifically assigned to precept, but someone has stepped up and done the work.
5.33 Relief Employee: We returned to our previous proposal and requested that OHSU clarify and narrow theirs.
5.41 Temp Employees: OHSU struck our language stating that temps can also be known as travelers. We’ve requested that language be added because managers are not trained on our contract and this causes confusion and grievances.
5.42 Temporary Non-Bargaining Unit Worker: This defines traveler or agency workers OHSU brings on temporarily. We are rejecting the language entirely because this is already defined in 5.41. Separating them out only muddies the issue.
5.46 Work Unit: This was an attempt to make the language clearer. We’re in agreement that clarity is needed and made some adjustments to the structure.
7.2.6 Temp Change to Work Location: We’ve requested this be three miles while OHSU wants this to remain five miles. Reporting to Richmond Clinic is very different from reporting to the South Waterfront, especially if you’re taking public transportation.
23.3.5 When Attendance is the Issue: Strengthened the proposal to help ensure that no one who uses accrued sick time receives an occurrence. We also want to be sure that anyone who is sent home or told not to report to work due to illness doesn’t receive an occurrence whether they have sick time remaining or not.
MOU 13 OHSU/AFSCME Workplace Mental Health Support: Our proposal is to transition from establishing the service to supporting an ongoing program. We used suggestions from the people doing this work for our members to strengthen and refine the language. Currently there are only two people supporting all of us in Local 328 and we are asking that it be expanded to five.
OHSU’s Counters:
Grievance Package: OHSU’s response to our grievance proposal did show movement, but for every step forward there were two steps back. Both teams agree that timelines being inconsistent across the various steps can be confusing, but while we suggested moving many of the timelines to the 21 days that has been the standard, OHSU suggested moving all timelines to 15 days. This means you’d have less time to file a grievance after something happened at work. Less time for our union to create a strategy with you and make your argument to management.
Details will be shared soon about our Bargaining Town Hall on Monday, May 19th.
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