Mediation Update for 11/4/2025
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Earlier today, our team declared impasse. This begins our 30 day cooling off period where we’re not legally allowed to strike. We will continue to meet with OHSU during that period and working to clear any language that we can.
Over the next seven days, we will be turning in our last, best, and final offer to OHSU and the state mediator, along with costing for our proposals. You’ll find summaries below for our union’s final offer and OHSU’s most recent offer. Once they have been submitted in their entirety, we’ll share those documents.
Last week, we submitted a confidential supposal that was very similar to the proposals we’re summarizing below. We hoped that this significant movement would give OHSU a way to meet us somewhere in between our last proposal and theirs, but their response was nearly identical to their previous pass.
OHSU has told us that the issue is that they simply don’t have any additional funds to work with. They estimated that our proposals were $280 million apart. For reference, when we declared impasse in 2022, OHSU estimated that we were $116 million apart.
The simple truth is that while OHSU has always cried poverty during bargaining campaigns (those who have been here long enough will remember them going so far as turning off the Mac Hall fountain until shortly after a tentative agreement was announced), we face unique financial uncertainty in healthcare as government spending for research, Medicare, Medicaid, and other public health programs is cut and often eliminated. These changes have been unpredictable and erratic.
We don’t believe that they’re in as dire a circumstance as they’ve claimed, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t real economic difficulties ahead. With this reality in mind, our bargaining team spent more than 12 hours working to put this proposal together. Early in a contract campaign, any bargaining team pushes to get everything they believe they deserve, but in the end their job is to get the best contract that is possible. While we can’t get everything we may have hoped for, we are still proud to stand behind this record breaking and life-changing contract.
With the strength of our strike pledge turnout last month, where nearly 97% of the thousands who participated voted “yes,” we are demanding that OHSU bring our lowest paid workers to a living wage and recognize the increasingly complex work that we all do every day to make this institution what it is. Our patients are getting sicker, our staffing is getting tighter, and we must be compensated for the additional work they have asked us and will continue to ask us to do.
Across the Board Wage Increases:
Year one: AFSCME has proposed $5 or 8%, whichever is greater with the minimum wage increasing to $23 an hour. OHSU has proposed $1.25 or 4%, whichever is greater with a new minimum wage of $22 an hour.
Year two: AFSCME has proposed $2 or 5%, whichever is greater with the minimum wage increased to $25 an hour. OHSU has proposed 2.5% with a new minimum wage of $22.55 an hour.
Year three: AFSCME has proposed $2 or 5%, whichever is greater with the minimum wage increased to $27 an hour. OHSU has proposed 2.5% with a new minimum wage of $23.11 an hour.
AFSCME has proposed retro pay back to July 1, 2025. OHSU has proposed a one-time payment of $1250 for 0.5-1.0 FTE employees and $625 for employees with less than 0.5 FTE if we do not declare a strike.
This would be the largest increase to our compensation that this union has ever achieved. Our lowest paid workers would see their income increase by more than 50% over 3 years. Any full time employee with a 1.0 FTE would see an increase of at least $6,800 in the first year.
Time Off:
AFSCME has proposed 1 additional vacation day for each tier for both hourly and salary employees. OHSU has proposed no additional vacation time.
AFSCME has proposed a floating holiday for Indigenous Peoples Day. OHSU has rejected any additional holidays or floating holidays.
AFSCME and OHSU have agreed upon 4 additional wellbeing hours (though this is not technically a tentative agreement).
14.1.8 Paid Bereavement Leave: AFSCME and OHSU have agreed upon 4 additional hours of paid bereavement leave (though this is not technically a tentative agreement).
AFSCME has dropped our requests for additional sick time, additional wellbeing time for people in trauma intensive roles, and our Community Outbreak Leave proposal.
7.5.1 Lactation Periods: AFSCME has proposed that these can be done on paid or unpaid time (pumping while on your lunch wouldn’t make it paid). OHSU has proposed that these can be done on paid or unpaid time, but only if the employee completes the accommodation process.
Appendix A:
Our position here is complicated. OHSU has requested that we focus our requests into Memorandums of Understanding (MOU’s) that target the specific departments that are most egregiously abusing this language. We are currently putting those MOU’s together and they will likely impact our overall Appendix A proposal, but at this time we are holding on many of our requests that we may move on later if we can resolve them outside of the appendix.
For instance, the departments that are guilty of forcing employees to be on-call for an excessive amount of time would be given limits they must work within rather than a new rule that may impact departments where there isn’t a problem.
We will release the full language for these requests once it has been assembled and passed to OHSU.
Remaining requests:
Shift work definition to assist with scheduling issues.
Salaried employees get one additional vacation day for each tier of service (same as hourly).
We are dropping the request that salaried employees engaged in shift work are eligible for OT provisions. We will be addressing these issues in the MOU’s mentioned above.
Salary employees that are shift workers get at least a one time option to switch to hourly per position.
Voluntary move from hourly to salary placed on closest step plus 11% to add structure to the process and recognize the additional hours salary workers are expected to work without extra compensation.
We have agreed on vacation use and accruals. Use of vacation will only be necessary in greater than 4 hour increments.
Seniority - .75 FTE and higher will be calculated based on 1.0 FTE; at or below .74 FTE will be calculated based on .75 FTE
Other financials and differentials:
Retirement: AFSCME has dropped additional asks and will accept codifying our existing benefits in the contract. They are currently only provided through OHSU policy. Going forward, OHSU will not be able to make changes without negotiating them with our union and future bargaining teams will have better tools to expand these rights. OHSU has agreed to this in their most recent proposal.
15.2 Insurance Contributions: AFSCME has agreed to current contract language.
AFSCME has dropped our proposal for yearly Service Recognition Awards.
Step and Grade: Teams close to agreement, but OHSU has proposed 13 steps (with 5 additional longevity steps) compared to AFSCME’s 10 steps (with 5 additional longevity steps).
8.3 Merit-Based Adjustments: AFSCME has rescinded new language for these and has proposed current contract language. OHSU has proposed deleting this entirely.
Promotion and upward reclassification: Both teams propose current contract language.
Evening and night differential: AFSCME is willing to rescind and accept current contract language in exchange for higher across the board increases, but will accept OHSU’s most recent agreement to increase the minimum rate from $1.36 to $1.75 for evening and from $2.65 to $3 for night shift.
10.2 On Call Pay: AFSCME and OHSU agree to increase to one hour of base pay for every 5 hours of call.
More than 16 hours worked in a 24 hour period: Both teams agree that the calculation for whether you’ve worked more than 16 hours will include both consecutive and non-consecutive hours. This will apply to regular hours worked or hours worked as a result of coming in while on-call. Paid at double time.
10.2.2 Supplemental Call: AFSCME is willing to withdraw our request to give employees designated as being in “supplemental call” shifts a $200 one-time payment in exchange for higher across the board increases. OHSU has agreed to this payment.
10.3 Work from Home While On-Call: AFSCME has proposed that if this work results in more than 8 hours off between shifts, workers will be eligible for double back. OHSU has tentatively agreed, though this is not yet a TA.
10.6 Bilingual Pay: Both teams propose current contract language. OHSU is not willing to give us the enhanced definition unless we move to a yearly bonus, which our members rejected.
10.11 Weekend Differential: Both teams have proposed current contract language.
10.12 Preceptor Pay: AFSCME has moved from their initial proposal to an increase to $1.50 to move more funds to the across the board wage increases. OHSU is willing to increase from $1 to $1.75 an hour in exchange for lower wages. The additional roles that were added will likely move to a tentative agreement now that pay is not part of the issue.
10.13 Float Pool Department Differential: AFSCME is willing to accept current contract language to move funds to the across the board wage increases. OHSU is willing to increase from $1 to $1.25 an hour in exchange for lower wages.
10.14 Additional Need Incentive: AFSCME has not moved significantly on this proposal, staying at the greater of $10 or 50%. OHSU has proposed the greater of $12 or 35%. OHSU’s proposal would be a pay decrease for most departments that regularly implement ANI because it removes the ability to offer more than 35%.
10.X Staffing Stabilization: OHSU has agreed to a version of the oversight portion of this proposal, but AFSCME has maintained the financial portion. We did move from a differential of 10% to 3%.
Appendix B Flex Staff: OHSU wants to restructure flex staff salaries to a flat 15% differential with any whose current wage is higher than that would have wages frozen until the cohort catches up. We have rejected this proposal and will stay with current contract language.
MOU 8 Hardship Funds: Both teams have agreed to an increase from $200,000 to $250,000.
MOU 13 Mental Health Support: AFSCME has dropped our request for an additional social work coordinator and agreed to OHSU’s most recent proposal that agreed to one additional social worker to support this program.
MOU 29 Advanced Professional Certification Differential Pay: AFSCME has reduced our ask here to $1 for each certification for up to 1 certification. This isn’t enough to compensate someone for the special skills and prestige that OHSU borrows from our workers, but it is a “nose in the tent” for us to increase this in the future. OHSU is currently rejecting the language in its entirety.
MOU X Certification and Licensure Renewal Program: AFSCME has agreed to withdraw this proposal. OHSU has previously rejected it.
MOU X Social Work Council: This was already close to a tentative agreement. OHSU has committed to maintain the Social Work Council, providing the requested 250 paid hours per fiscal year for SWC members to participate in meetings and related activities.
MOU X Training Trust: AFSCME continues to push for this new program, which would create something similar to the recent and very successful Building Bridges.$1 million would be seeded from OHSU’s 30-30-30 plan to create the program. A fruitful discussion was had about this yesterday, so we’re hopeful OHSU will reconsider their refusal. We are very open to negotiating the structure to be sure it works for everyone involved.
MOU X Support for Labor Management Committee: We are in agreement to add 1 FTE to support this new program.
While our team waited for a response from OHSU regarding our confidential supposal from last week, we reviewed the layoff language the employer passed to us last week.
They had originally given us a response that cut our bumping rights, but you were loud and clear that this was not something you would accept. They went back to the drawing board and gave us a new proposal that didn’t include any takebacks.
AFSCME Layoff Response:
Moved the Preamble that had been added into the main body of the first article. It wasn’t necessary for this to be separate.
In the last round of layoffs, we saw managers abuse language that could exempt someone from being laid off due to having a special skill. Both teams are interested in closing this loophole by more narrowly defining how those special skills are documented. We have mostly agreed to OHSU’s last pass with a small tweak in wording and a requirement that the skill be documented at least 60 days prior to determining that a layoff is warranted. Current contract language requires it be documented 30 days prior.
Accepted OHSU’s expansion of the notice of layoff from our proposed 30 to 45 days.
Cut “as an observer” from the language allowing a union representative to be present during a layoff meeting.
Moved 19.2 Temporary Workers and 19.3 Evaluation Periods under 19.1 as 19.1.1 and 19.1.2. They should exist as supplements to 19.1 Initial Selection and Notice of Layoff, not separate articles.
19.1.2 Temporary Workers: Cut language that exempts temps or travelers from being cut due to provisions in their individual contracts. Just like when employees are curtailed, their individual contracts should not circumvent our collective bargaining agreement. Also added that any skills that are not otherwise readily available within the bargaining unit must be documented.
Cut language OHSU added that we believe would have given management the ability to cut relief positions outside of seniority or other reductions in overall workforce.
Maintained our request to add recall language to our contract. This has been part of our proposal from the beginning of this campaign.
19.5.2 Vacancy outside of work unit: Agreed to language that would require someone who have previously worked in a position past the internal job change period.
Removed references to positions being eligible if they are “within the same EOU” throughout the article. Many positions exist in multiple Executive Organizational Units.
19.6.1 Paid administrative leave: Cut language that allows the employer to assign work at their discretion. This gives the employer too much leeway.
19.6.6 Effect of refusing offer of employment: Accepted language better defining this process. Employees will have 48 hours (excluding weekends) to make their election and failure to respond will result in a default will be severance or PHL if they are ineligible for severance.
19.7.1 Removal from list: Both teams have agreed to expanding an employee’s time on the list from 18 months to 2 years.
5.24 Preferential Hire List: OHSU has added that placement could not happen if the interview process has commenced for a position. We amended this to only being a restriction when a written offer has been made. Also tweaked the language that requires a position go to the most senior qualified employee.
There’s a lot of information in this post, so we’re sure our members will have questions. As the language is assembled for our submission to the state, we will make it available in its entirety. If you would like to see our tentative agreements, there is a currently complete list here.
Look for more information about our upcoming strike vote, which will begin this Sunday, November 9th and continuing through Monday, November 17th. We will have explanations of what to expect and things like wage calculators to help you make your decision.
Our last contract was the strongest our union had ever seen. This contract is on pace to be even better.
Thank you for your support. None of this would be possible without your strength and solidarity.