Mediation Update for 6/17/2025
Today was our first day of mediation. This didn’t change our workflow significantly, but will have a greater impact as time goes on. For more information about how you can expect mediation to alter what you see in our weekly updates, see this blog article.
Our team was very frustrated after receiving OHSU’s economic counters last week, so it was good to see movement at the table this week.
The big wins in our tentative agreements (TA’s):
Limited layoff rights for limited duration employees who are here more than a year.
Improvements to the definitions of unauthorized absences and the use of sick leave.
Better support for our PANDA workers.
AFSCME Counters:
5.X Training: Resubmitted our previous proposal. There is a difference between training, precepting, and onboarding and we want them to be defined separately not just for the purposes of our trainer pay proposal but also to better support our other language throughout the contract (like lead work).
5.X Trainer or Facilitator: Resubmitted our previous proposal.
10.15 Trainer Pay: Resubmitted with the amount changed from $3 to $1.50.
28.4.1 Labor Management Committee Across the Board Increases: Increases in funding haven’t previously accounted for increases in the staff’s pay, so we’ve sent over a better worded version to ensure that when the employees’ wages go up, that doesn’t come out of the services they’re able to offer OHSU members.
28.4.2 Carry-over funds: Resubmitted because there are many places within OHSU where funds carry over into the following year. We want that for the LMC as well.
MOU XX Indigenous Peoples’ Day: Resubmitted. We didn’t make any changes because this is an important request for our members.
Tentative Agreements:
5.17 Limited Duration Employee: This gives limited duration employees who have been with OHSU for more than 12 months limited layoff rights. They’ll now have access to the preferential hire list and severance.
7.8.2 On-Call following shift cancellation: Part of our work to improve on-call language. Employees whose shifts have been canceled may opt to remain on-call with pay for the first 4 hours of their shift or ½ the length of their shift, whichever is greater.
8.9 Travel Expenses: OHSU will cover travel expenses for remote employees who are called in for a meeting or project (not when an assignment is changing from remote to hybrid or a permanent return to the office).
10.9 Transport Work: This improves the pay for our PANDA (Pediatric and Neonatal Transport Doernbecher Children’s Hospital) volunteers from $75 to $100 as well as increasing their insurance coverage from $500,000 to $1,000,000. This is important and often dangerous work transporting critically ill or injured children by air or ground. For more information, visit PANDA’s website.
13.3 Utilization and Payment of Sick Leave: We’ve broadened this right to align with recent BOLI updates and to explicitly cover disasters or other public emergencies.
17.3.1 Computation of Seniority: Minor clarification.
23.3.3 Meetings other than investigatory meetings: This is mostly a title change, but the previous title was a doozy: “other meetings distinguished.” This should help our members and their managers find this language much more easily.
OHSU Counters:
5.45 Unauthorized Absences: We’ve agreed other than the title previously, so this might be a TA.
5.46 Work Unit: OHSU withdrew their request and suggested current contract language.
6.6.3 Failure to Reach Agreement: OHSU is mostly holding to current contract language, but after some discussion at the table they better understand our intention and are open to a counter. We see this as applying in a relatively narrow set of circumstances that would make it appropriate to go before a Labor Management Committee. They expressed some agreement given our interpretation, so there’s room to find a compromise here.
6.14 Performance Evaluations: OHSU suggested current contract language. We had a conversation about why we had sought out the changes to this language. They’re open to a counter where the request is better defined now that they better understand what we’re hoping to accomplish.
12.3 Use of Vacation: OHSU has some concerns about IRS issues that can be caused if a relief employee uses significantly more vacation hours than they are normally scheduled. We’re getting close with this and for people who have a flexible work schedule. Our teams seem to be well-aligned on intention and now it’s a matter of making sure the language matches and that we address any unforeseen side effects.
17.2.3 Employment outside of bargaining unit: OHSU separated out people returning to the same job classification and people who return to a different bargaining unit position. Our team asked about people who return to a nearly identical position (the example given was a respiratory therapist returning to pediatric versus adult care) and there was another good discussion around clarifying the language.
23.6 Unauthorized Absences: Agreed to our concept, but changed the language around. We’ll review, but this is likely close to having a tentative agreement.
Our next date with the mediator will be July 15th and we will continue to meet with OHSU in the mean time. This way we have some time to get more of the smaller issues off the table before we dig deeper into that process.
We will be joining with Advanced Practitioners United to have a Rally for a Living Wage on Friday, June 27th. Please stand with your union siblings in demanding what we all deserve. Details at this link.
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