Impasse Declared

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Last week, our team gave OHSU a confidential supposal with significant movement to give management a final chance to meet us somewhere in the middle.

They didn’t move at all.

We didn’t expect them to accept our offer, but the complete lack of movement gave us nowhere else to go.

So today at noon we notified the state mediator, OHSU, and our membership that we have declared impasse.

What does this mean?

We’ll be turning in our last, best, and final offer to the employer and the state along with the costing for our proposals. Everything that has been tentatively agreed to has been locked in, but things that are still on the table can be negotiated or rejected.

We will continue to meet with OHSU to iron out anything we can, but this escalates us to the next phase of the Public Employees Collective Bargaining Agreement (PECBA) timeline. We now enter a 30 day cooling off period where we’re not permitted to go on strike. By law, we must give OHSU a 10 day notice, which can run concurrent with the 30 day cooling off period.

Before a strike can be called by our bargaining team, our membership will need to authorize a strike with a minimum of 60% of dues-paying members participating and a majority voting yes. That vote will begin this Sunday, November 9th and run through Monday, November 17th.

This decision was made thanks to our members’ participation in our recent strike pledge and the strength that gave our team at the bargaining table. Thousands of our dues-paying members (and even hundreds of represented employees who are not currently dues-paying) voted, with almost 97% voting yes.

A full summary of both OHSU and our union’s most recent proposals will be posted later today along with more information about the strike vote and how you can help.

Our membership meeting at noon today met Zoom’s capacity, so we will have a second meeting ASAP (likely 1 PM - more info ASAP).