Bargaining Update for 5/27/2025
Today our union passed some of the larger proposals that were still in our court. We have not yet heard back on the big economic proposals. We know that’s what everyone’s waiting on and we’ll have that information for you as soon as it crosses the table.
Our first day of mediation is June 17th and OHSU has signaled that they intend to have counters for us on the big proposals (pay, vacation, benefits) before then. Hopefully that means we’ll have more information for you in the next two weeks.
Many of the proposals at this stage are in the weeds, so we’ve included a quick summary of the largest issues we saw today.
Big Topics of the Day:
Simplified the grievance language to make it easier to track. When our union misses a deadline, a grievance is automatically dropped. We have requested that if OHSU fails to meet a deadline, the grievance is automatically won.
We’ve asked for more stewards and more steward hours to meet our members’ needs.
OHSU thinks the law is good enough for lactation periods. We think we deserve more.
AFSCME Counters
Article 2 Union Provisions: We were able to accept some of their small changes but there’s still a lot of distance between our proposals and theirs.
Refined our request to ensure steward access to employees on paid time.
Reformatted officer language to make it easier to read. When passing this back and forth it became clear how poorly formatted the original language was.
We moved on our request for officer hours, essentially splitting them 50/50 where OHSU will pay for half of their hours and our union will pay the other. This is current practice for most officers.
Maintained our additional steward hours and agreed to OHSU’s request to have a maximum number of hours for the program. No one on either team knows the origin of the maximum number of hours in the current contract, but management looked at the number of employees when it was added and estimated that it assumed each member would use half an hour of steward time per year. We expanded that to giving each member an hour and a half. For perspective, a single investigatory meeting will take up at least an hour of steward time.
Maintained our requests for additional lead and senior lead stewards. Originally the lead steward request assumed that we had a merger pending with Legacy. Since that is off the table now, we restructured our lead steward request to give us one lead per 500 represented employees. We currently have 11 and this would give us 17 and room to grow along with our membership.
Agreed to some of OHSU’s language about accurate tracking of steward hours (clocking them in Kronos meets these requirements) and notification when we add new stewards
Agreed to leave in language that limits the distance a steward can travel in the execution of their regular duties, but raised it from 5 to 15 miles and made a carve out for supporting employees who are subject to for cause drug and alcohol testing. There are a small number of stewards who have received this training and they have to be ready to travel as soon as the request is received.
Continued to move closer together on coverage of New Employee Orientation.
Maintained our request that OHSU include information about travelers in what they share with the union.
Moved closer on our expansion of lost time rights. Agreed to an increase from 5 to 6 employees being out at a time (we originally asked for 7) and rather than requesting additional days for everyone, changed the structure to 90 days if taken as a block or 180 days if taken intermittently. Currently lost time can only be taken once every 3 years. We’ve asked that be once per year instead.
Refined our request for Union Officer Leave so it would match existing language, but their lost time would not count towards the total number of employees out on lost time. This would be for someone who was elected into a state or national union office. We don’t currently have anyone who would qualify for this, but as unions become more member-lead, it becomes more likely and we want to plan ahead.
As our union grows, there may be the need for additional officers. We had made a fairly open-ended request that any officers added through constitutional amendment be recognized by the employer but they pushed back because they wouldn’t know exactly what they were agreeing to. We have countered that rather than agreeing to something nebulous, there is a limited contract reopener where if we add an officer, we would go to OHSU and bargain that officer’s release hours.
Article 2.12 and 29.2 Negotiating Team: This defines the bargaining team for our future contracts and will give future teams an additional day per week to do bargaining work (hopefully greatly accelerating this process). We mostly accepted their last counter with some small differences in timelines. This is close to being a tentative agreement.
Article 5.34 Remote Work: We’re holding on a strong definition that clearly states that a fully remote worker is not expected to come to campus unless it’s under specific circumstances.
Article 17.2.3 Employment Outside of the Bargaining Unit: We want this language to apply to anyone who returns to the bargaining unit and not just within the same classification. We have agreed to their other changes.
Article 24 Grievance: We’re still pushing for some big changes here.
Agreed to many small changes that the teams have worked on. This will allow us to focus on the issues where we’re far apart.
24.1.3 Union Representation: OHSU added a clarification that the limitation would not apply to “discussions with an employee in the normal course of duty.” The language seemed superfluous and overly broad. We struck it out.
24.1.4 Grievances of Specific Matters: We want to ensure that a Compensation Manager is reviewing all reclassification appeals. We returned to current contract language on much of the rest of this article as it was stronger than what OHSU had proposed and we weren’t interested in finding a compromise that could move us backwards.
We have requested that verbal warnings be void and removed from our file after one year. Written warnings shall be void and removed after two years.
Step 1: Changed the deadlines from OHSU’s proposed 15 days to 21 days. Added language that would declare a grievance won if OHSU misses their deadlines.
Step 2: Requested the same changes as Step 1.
Step 3: Agreed to current contract language with the addition that arbitrators would be selected from the Employment Relations Board. This is mostly an update to be sure the contract aligns with actual practice.
24.2 Arbitration: Expanded timeline to 90 days. This gives members more time to gather what they need for their case. It also allows time to appeal should a grievance be denied by our executive board.
Article MOU X Admin Leave: This language adds a monthly report showing our union who is on administrative leave (paid or unpaid), how long they’ve been on leave, current status, and the rationale for the leave. We have accepted OHSU’s language from their most recent counter. OHSU proposed it as part of a package, so if they are amenable to it being separated out then this is a tentative agreement.
Article MOU X Admin Leave Review: This language adds a quarterly review of employees on administrative leave between our union and OHSU. We have accepted OHSU’s language from their most recent counter. OHSU proposed it as part of a package, so if they are amenable to it being separated out then this is a tentative agreement.
Tentative Agreements:
7.2.6 Temporary Changes to Work Location: We reduced the miles needed before triggering this language from 5 miles to 3 miles. OHSU has agreed this is a more reasonable metric.
10.3.2 When a Phone Call-Back is Required: This was just a very basic clarification. No substantive change.
OHSU Counters
Articles 5.17, 5.41, 5.42 Limited Duration/Temporary Worker Package: It was clear during our discussion that our definitions are far apart. There is room for and evidence of abuse of this language that has our team very concerned.
5.46 Work Unit: Their stated goal was to simplify and clarify this definition, but we don’t believe their counter achieves this. We’ll be continuing to work on a definition that’s both more clear and more accurate
7.5.1 Lactation Periods: OHSU accepted our renaming but still want it to be paid or unpaid time.
18.1.3 When Job Bid is Unnecessary: OHSU’s addition to this article was “When a new position has the same location, hours of work, and days off as all other staff in the work unit, then a job bid is unnecessary.” We don’t believe this accurately reflects the realities of how job bids are currently or intended to be processed.
18.6 Filling of Vacancies With Temporary or Limited Duration Vacancies: OHSU completely rewrote this proposal, ignoring our intent. Our goal was to create a new process where OHSU would hire employees who don’t have a regular FTE to take on project work rather than hiring temporary or limited duration employees. Their rationale states they don’t want to “re-invent the wheel.” This is disappointing as it could be a great money-maker for our members and a great money savings for OHSU.
Keep an eye out for big updates over the next two weeks as both teams try to get as much off the table as we can before we begin arbitration on June 17th.
We’re planning a rally for the end of June (details to come) and our new merch store has recently gone live. There will still be swag you can get directly from our union at events, but if you’re out of patience or out of the state this is a great way to show your union pride right away.
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