Mediation Update for 10/7/2025
This morning our bargaining team heard presentations from a financial analyst who has been looking at OHSU’s economic situation and the company that administers our bargaining surveys.
For the more data-obsessed members of our team, it was a perfect way to start the day.
Summaries of those presentations may be written in the future and they’re available to members of our union’s leadership, but in the interest of getting this update completed as quickly as possible we will stick to our biggest insights.
OHSU is certainly facing a weaker financial position than we’ve seen in the past, but their investment income continues to grow and capital projects will be moving from the ledger as they are completed. We would like to dig deeper, but OHSU has taken more than a year to complete some parts of the request for information that we made and a lot of the data is too high level to be useful or missing important context that was asked for. This is an ongoing project.
Our membership continues to show great frustration and mistrust with our employer and wants our union to take an aggressive stance in bargaining. Wages are far and away the highest priority.
As planned, the proposals today were non-economic as both teams are doing their best to get these items completed so that we can focus on the more contentious topics.
Our team passed a number of tentative agreements and continued working on the economic proposals when not in session with OHSU.
Management’s proposals showed a lot of movement today, which was encouraging. Their biggest proposals were a remote work package and a response to our layoff proposal. There were many lessons learned by both teams from the layoffs last year which we’ve tried to integrate into our approaches.
OHSU’s layoff proposal attempts to trade an option that they don’t believe has served our members or the employer well for a longer notice before a layoff, more time on the Preferred Hire List (PHL), and more time to decide whether to take severance. A brief summary of their proposal:
Increases notice of layoff from 15 to 45 days. We had requested an increase to 30, so OHSU is actually offering us more than we had proposed.
Rejected our recall language in favor of strengthening the PHL. Members who choose the PHL will now have those rights for 2 years.
Removed the placement option, where a more senior employee can displace an employee in the same classification with less seniority.
OHSU feels strongly that the placement option is frequently unsuccessful in the mid or long term. Employees who are placed have too often been a bad match for the department and ended up in risk of losing their job again during the evaluation period. Something that was shared was that they feel individual employees are much better at assessing whether they should apply for a position than management are.
Our concern is that despite the positive changes they’ve made, this doesn’t guarantee someone who is laid off can make their rent the month they’re let go, even if they have better access to being re-employed. Of course, the placement option also means that the less senior employee is in that same position, so this is a complex issue to consider.
We need to hear your opinions on this language, which you can read in full here.
AFSCME Counters:
5.19 Onboarding: Passed similar language to our previous pass. OHSU better understands that this is to differentiate what can be a prolonged process of orienting someone to a new position from showing people the basics in their first few days and weeks.
Temporary Worker Package: This is getting closer, though one of the issues we’re still stuck on seems to be significant for both parties.
5.41 Temporary Non-Bargaining Unit Workers (including Traveler/Agency): Agree on most language, but we want to stick to current contract language on the duration of their assignments (1,040 hours in a calendar year versus OHSU’s proposed 12 months in an 18 month period).
19.11.1 Order of curtailment/cancellation: We agree to the order, but reject OHSU’s language insisting temporary workers/travelers can only be curtailed “if permitted under their contract.” Their contract isn’t the one we’re negotiating and ours takes precedence.
Tentative Agreements:
Consensus Package: Summarized last week. We agree that staffing doesn’t fall under this language and will be taking a different approach.
Article 2 Union Provisions: Summarized last week.
6.6.2 Change in Circumstances: Summarized last week
OHSU Counters
Remote Work Package: This is a mix of new language and somewhat older language we’ll respond to ASAP.
5.34 Remote Work: OHSU’s pass at this language finally understands our intention and this definition is for the concept of what remote work is.
5.X Fully Remote: OHSU’s full text here is “Fully remote is defined as requiring no essential functions performed at an OHSU Work Site.”
5.X Hybrid Remote: Full text here is “Hybrid remote is defined as a flexible work arrangement in which an employee, under a work agreement, is scheduled to perform at an alternative worksite but also has essential functions that must be performed at an OHSU work site.” Our concern here is that someone who comes in once every 6 months shouldn’t be seen as hybrid since it could open the door for that arrangement to be altered too easily.
6.15.7 Return to OHSU Work Site:
a. Hybrid Remote: OHSU has proposed that if an employee is already required to be at an OHSU work site at least once per pay period, there would be a 28 day notice before any change could be made. If they are required to be there less often, the notice goes to 60 days. Similar to above, our concern is this would motivate supervisors to require more in-person days just to maintain a flexibility they don’t actually require.
b. Change from Fully Remote: Restructured a bit to streamline the language. Similar language to hybrid, but with a 90 day notice. Additionally, employees can choose whether to accept the change, exercise Preferential Hire List rights, or take severance.
We also proposed safety related language that OHSU has partially agreed to. They are unwilling to commit to an employee never working in a building alone, but did agree to sharing policies and safety protocols before someone returns to the office. We will assess this language and see if we feel that it addresses our concerns in a reasonable way.
MOU X Remote Work Transition: OHSU has weakened our language asking that all employees have their work status defined to this clarification only occurring at the employee’s request. They included a link to their Remote Work Position Assessment.
Protected Leave Package: This is language that has been grouped together to address what is considered an occurrence and what absences are not. OHSU has made movement here towards protecting absences due to their policies. For example, if someone who does direct patient care has a tuberculosis exposure at work, there could be restrictions on when they can return to work and those should not put their job in jeopardy.
5.X Occurrence: We’ve mostly agreed on this definition, but OHSU cut our clarification of half and full occurrences, instead referring to their policies.
5.X Protected Medical/Sick Leave: OHSU made movement towards our definitions here and reworded things for clarity. We’ll review this closely and game out possible scenarios where management might try to circumvent this language to see whether we are close to a tentative agreement.
23.3.5 When attendance is the issue: OHSU consolidated our changes to this article into 5.X Protected Medical/Sick Leave.
MOU 27 Sick Leave Occurrences: OHSU agreed to move this forward from the last contract, but replaced “within 120 days” with “at the union’s request.” This allows us to work with OHSU to discuss and refine their attendance and sick leave occurrence procedures. We immediately told them we were making the request.
Grievance Package: This is language we’re getting closer on, but the remaining gap is wide. Under current contract language, if a union rep or steward misses a deadline, a grievance is lost but if OHSU misses one, it just moves forward to the next step in the process. This isn’t an equivalent consequence. OHSU is very resistant to our proposal that the grievance be considered won if they miss a deadline and considers current contract language to already be a compromise. We disagree.
Layoff Package: OHSU has taken months to respond to this language, but we acknowledge this is because they were taking their time to be sure that they were bringing something significant to the table. We may not be able to agree to their proposal, but it did show that they were taking this seriously and wanted to improve the process based on the problems that were exposed during the mass layoffs last year.
Article 19 Preamble: OHSU weakened our language demanding they meet with the union when there are layoffs, but agreed to a version of this. They’re open to working with us to mitigate the impact of job cuts, but don’t want to open things up to full negotiations.
19.1 Initial Selection and Notice of Layoff: OHSU agreed that there was a problem during the previous layoffs where we saw managers claim that specific employees had special skills that made them ineligible for layoff that let them choose who would stay rather than it being based on seniority. To address this, their version of the language states that these special skills
“... must be subject to a certification or otherwise only acquirable through a course of training beyond the orientation in the employee’s department, and documented in the position description prior to layoff.”
OHSU also expanded the notification of layoff to at least 45 days. Current contract language is 15 days and our proposal was 30 days. They actually countered with more than we had requested because of how they want to restructure the layoff process.
They agreed that employees should have more information at the time of the notification, including the reason for the layoff, severance information as of the date of the layoff, health insurance coverage or COBRA equivalent. They will also notify our union when they will be having layoff meetings so that we can prepare stewards to attend as observers and to support the members who are impacted.
19.2 Temporary Workers: Mostly updated to reflect new terminology agreed to elsewhere.
19.4 Options of Employees Notified of Layoff: As a trade-off for the additional notification and time on the Preferred Hire List (PHL), OHSU has asked to remove the option of placement in a new position. The management team has talked with us more than once about placement being an option that isn’t used often and is successful in the long term even more rarely. From their perspective and experience, too many of the people they have placed have ended up being removed and moved to the PHL because they weren’t good matches for their new position. This is likely to be a controversial proposal and we would like to hear your opinions on this.
19.5 Placement in new position: Cut based on changes in 19.4 Options of Employees Notified of Layoff.
19.6 Placement Provisions: Cut based on changes in 19.4 Options of Employees Notified of Layoff.
19.7 Employees Placed on Preferential Hire List: OHSU removed our recall language from this as they rejected that proposal broadly and our provision that employees be able to use their accruals while on the PHL, but accepted our other changes regarding additional access to resources offered by the Career and Workplace Enhancement Center and 6 hours of paid time to access these and other layoff-related resources.
19.7.1 Removal from List: Agreed to our increase from 18 months to 2 years on the PHL and before someone loses credit for seniority or service.
19.8 Severance Pay: OHSU expanded the time someone can choose to receive severance to up to six months after going on to the PHL. They also restricted someone from being rehired for 6 months if they take severance, but in our discussion at the table, OHSU expressed willingness to change that to have that match the amount of severance or to give someone the ability to pay back their severance if they are placed into a new position. For example, if you receive 6 weeks of severance, you would not be eligible to accept a new position 4 weeks in unless you paid back the difference of 2 weeks of pay. This is not how OHSU’s language is currently written, but will certainly be part of our response.
19.X Recall: OHSU removed all of this language because they would prefer to enhance the PHL and generally believe it works best when an employee is the one deciding what to apply for.
5.24 Preferential Hire List: OHSU added language that would place a slight restriction on placement into a position where the interview process has already commenced, but otherwise strengthened and clarified, making it explicit that someone on the PHL would be placed above both internal and external applications and ensuring the qualified candidate with the most seniority would receive the offer.
Appendix D Severance Benefits: Under Severance Benefits, OHSU added a clarification that “delaying election of severance until after the employee is no longer employed by OHSU may limit pension contribution eligibility.” Also clarified that employees who elect severance from the PHL will not receive additional cashout of unused vacation leave. This is essentially to keep someone from finding a way to “double dip.”
Both teams’ proposals today moved us closer to our goal of clearing out as many items as we can so that the next few weeks can focus entirely on the economic proposals that are our members’ highest priorities.
Our strike assessment continues and we will have a post up ASAP with the details of why it’s important and how to make your pledge. This will help our bargaining team know where our membership stands as well as helping to grease the wheels for a future strike vote. Getting a vast majority of our membership to participate in a strike vote will require all hands be on deck among our stewards and our most engaged members, so this is our warm up to be sure that vote is successful.
Our plan next week is to pass as many of our economic proposals as many times as we can and both teams have committed to a long day. We will have our regular mini-town halls at noon and 5 PM, but since we intend to be there until as late as 8 PM, our final update may not come out until late Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.
Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to our very successful rally with Research Workers United on Thursday. There is no replacement for the solidarity that we feel when we gather and show our collective strength.