Mediation Update: August 26
Details regarding the below proposal are now posted, here. Please direct comments there. Thank you!
We spent another 12 hours in mediation today, starting our day with the news that our members authorized a strike. Thank you! This strike authorization is important to our bargaining team’s efforts. While the teams worked on crafting and exchanging comprehensive economic proposals today, we also reached several important tentative agreements on the following sections of the contract:
7.8 On Call
9.2 Call Back
10.2 On-Call Pay
21.4.2 Employee-Requested Reclassification
MOU #7 Services for Employees Whose Primary Language Is Not English
We presented the following counterproposals to OHSU:
OHSU shared a confidential economic supposal with our team in the morning. In the evening, we met with OHSU and presented a package proposal that incorporates our members’ economic priorities as well as language to improve our members’ work-life balance. The full proposal can be viewed here. Key points include:
Across-the-Board Raises:
8% in year 1 of the contract
7% in year 2
7% in year 3
Ratification Bonus (for most employees, this is a better deal than retro ATBs)
Sick Leave: 20 additional hours
Shift Differential:
Evening: 7% or $1.50/hour, whichever is greater
Night: 12.5% or $3.00/hour, whichever is greater
Bereavement Leave: 20 paid hours per year
ANI: 25% or $10.00/hour, whichever is greater
During late-stage mediation, the proposal packages are usually presented in the summary format you see in the above-linked document. Over the weekend, we’ll put up a post with more details about our proposal, including PDFs of key language. We’ll also update the wage-proposal calculator so you can see the economic impact of the current proposals. [Ed. Note: The updated wage-comparison calculator can be downloaded here.]
You’re likely wondering why we reduced our ATB proposal to 8%/7%/7% tonight, especially after such a strong showing in our strike vote this week. Until tonight, we haven’t moved since our initial proposal, so we hope that reducing our ask here will encourage OHSU to increase its ATB proposal. Our goal is to get our members the best possible contract without needing to strike, and reducing our ATB proposal slightly is a necessary step toward reaching that goal. We let OHSU know that our proposal tonight was very close to our last, best, final offer.
The teams agreed to hold a virtual mediation session on Tuesday, Aug. 30. OHSU will respond to our proposal package during this session.