Mediation Update for 7/29/2025

Both teams came to the table today hoping to clear as much language as we could so that we can have a productive session with the mediator next week. Proposals were substantive and showed a lot of movement.

Even when we couldn’t come to an agreement, we had fruitful discussions with management about where our differences lie that should lead to more movement in the coming weeks.

Our big win today is that we have a tentative agreement on our administrative leave package. Management has used paid and unpaid administrative leave in inconsistent and potentially discriminatory ways over the years and this shines a much needed light on the leave’s use as well as setting guardrails around when and how it can be implemented. It’s something that may never impact you personally in your time at OHSU, but could wreck your entire life and career if it does.

AFSCME Morning Counters:

Scheduling Package Counter: The language we passed is summarized below. Some of these are very close to a tentative agreement and we talked with OHSU at length about the places where we disagree, so we’re hopeful we’ll see a tentative agreement soon.

• Relief Employees: We cut OHSU’s language stating that relief employees would need to provide availability for 4 days per pay period “as determined according to the Employer’s needs.”

• 7.3.6 Changes in Reporting Time: For shifts where the change is more than two hours, we have cut a piece from current contact language that limits the time someone is given premium pay if the notification requirements are not met.

• 7.5 Availability of Additional Work: We cut language that requires an employee to give back vacation or other paid time off to avoid going into overtime during the same pay period where they take additional shifts.

• 7.5.1 Shifts Becoming Available After the Schedule is Posted: We moved mostly to current contract language since the majority of the changes that OHSU had proposed were confusing and weren’t a benefit to our members.

• 7.5.1.b: OHSU wanted to make the rules that apply for work that becomes available with 24 hours’ notice or less apply to all work that becomes available with 7 days or less notice. We have rejected that. In ongoing discussions with OHSU throughout the day, this language doesn’t appear to have reflected their true intent and we look forward to seeing their next pass.

• Current contract language for shifts that are offered with 24 hours’ notice or less gives a 15 minute window where the most senior person who accepts the work receives it. After that, it becomes first come, first served. We accepted management’s proposal to change that to 30 minutes. 

• 7.5.3 Overtime Limitations: OHSU wants to stick to current contract language that mandates that any restrictions on working more than 16 hours in a 24 hour period only apply if the hours are consecutive but we feel strongly that this is insufficient. Non-consecutive work totaling 16 hours should count as well.

• 7.5.5 Mandatory Assignments of Overtime Work: We added back our language that explicitly states mandatory overtime be paid at overtime rate plus the highest ANI offered to recruit for the shift. This is both for clarity and to reject OHSU’s proposal to have a flat ANI rate elsewhere in the contract (rather than a minimum that departments can choose to go over).

• Employees who have to stay late should never pay any parking violations, even if those may be waived or reimbursed at a later date. We added language back to make this explicitly clear. OHSU made $5 million dollars in profit from employee parking in the last fiscal year. They have the resources to ensure no one working late to cover their poor staffing decisions incurs any additional fees. After discussing this with management, they believe we’re close to agreement on principles even if the language isn’t there yet. Hopefully this will be resolved in the next pass.

8.7.3 Written request for Market-Based review of New Classification request: OHSU had withdrawn this language due to how complex it was getting, but we feel that the changes are worth continuing to hash out. We reintroduced a mix of our language and what we felt was good about OHSU’s language. This is very close to our previous pass on this proposal.

12.1 Accrual of Vacation Time: We are holding to our first offer until OHSU responds with something substantive. They countered with zero additional vacation time and we don’t feel we can move until we see them move. Our initial proposal was made on April 1st.

LMC Package: We passed a counter that was almost identical to our last version, adding back the support for Labor Management Committees.

Administrative Leave Package: We’ve made a lot of headway, but the last point of disagreement is a significant one. Management agreed to this in our afternoon session.

• 23.X Unpaid Administrative Leave: OHSU wants a special carve out to be able to place individuals on unpaid leave outside of the disciplinary process. We see too many ways management could abuse this provision.

Appendix A: We continue to push back regarding salary employees who essentially do shift work.

• 1. Non-applicable contract provisions: We feel strongly that these should only apply when a person is truly doing salary work. If you’re required to work specific shifts like an hourly employee, then these articles should still apply to you.

• Removed OHSU’s language that would restrict salary employees from receiving weekend differentials.

• 2. Accrual of vacation time: Passed back our original ask. OHSU must give us a serious offer before we can move.

• We rejected OHSU’s proposal to review all salary employees and make a determination on whether they should remain salary or not. OHSU already determined they can be salary and we don’t have confidence they’re going to come to a different conclusion. No matter the intent of their proposal, the reality is that managers who abuse this language would continue to do so.

• We passed back our proposal that would make salary employees who work fixed shifts eligible for overtime provisions and give them a voluntary process to move from salary to hourly.

• Vacation and Sick Leave Accruals and Usage: We agreed to cut “If a salaried employee is on leave on OFLA, accruals should not be used.” Management correctly pointed out a technical issue with how salary time off is legally implemented that would make this language problematic. This is in line with rules for hourly employees.

• Differentials: Added back language regarding weekend differentials and referenced our renaming of 7.7 as Doubleback.

• Seniority: Added back our language that recognizes that salary employees rarely work just the number of hours assigned via their FTE.

• Meal and Rest Periods: We continue to push back on this existing language that makes it possible for management to avoid giving salary employees meal and rest periods. This isn’t an issue in workplaces where they have truly flexible schedules, but for our salary workers who are essentially hourly, this has been a major source of abuse.

Appendix B: Conditions of Flex Staff Employment: We proposed current contract language. OHSU’s changes would have limited Flex pay.

MOU 28 Well-Being Leave: We passed back our proposal to move this into the time off portion of the contract under 13.1.1. We again asked that the bank be increased to 16 hours and wrote a provision to ensure that Relief employees receive Well-Being Leave.

We rejected OHSU’s language allowing someone to use their Well-Being Leave if they’re assaulted at work as this is a workers compensation issue

Our team discussed how Well-Being Leave was originally offered by management because they weren’t able to bring additional sick time to the table but has become a valued benefit in its own right. Many of us perform our job duties in stressful conditions doing emotionally taxing work and having this time that recognizes that reality provides both time off and validation of what we’re going through.

OHSU Morning Counters:

6.6.3 Failure to Reach Agreement: This language is specifically about when additional work has been assigned and the employee and their manager disagree on how that’s been implemented and whether a reclassification or other solution is needed. We continue to disagree on the specifics of how this process should escalate, but OHSU’s proposal showed movement. The biggest difference philosophically is that we see the solution to these issues being more complex than management does. “Additional work” has a wider definition in reality than management’s team seems to realize.

15.2 Insurance Contributions: OHSU pulled this out of their larger compensation package and agreed to our language to make sure that Relief employees who work less than full time can qualify for appropriate levels of insurance benefits.

17.2.3 Employment Outside of the Bargaining Unit: After discussing the differences in how we saw this language, OHSU proposed changing this mostly back to current contract language and added a new section: 8.5.5 Return to the Bargaining Unit. 17.2.3 is about when someone is asked to move to a management position temporarily and 8.5.5 is for when someone has decided to move to a management position but then applies for a position that would move them back to the bargaining unit. Both will now be promised any pay adjustments that they would have been subject to if they had remained in the bargaining unit.

Potential TAs (formerly packaged): These are things we’ve agreed on previously that OHSU has confirmed they are willing to pull from the language they were previously packaged with.

• 6.14 Performance Evaluations

• 7.8 On-Call

• 10.4 In-House Standby Compensation

• 15.1.2 Relief Employees

Article 2: Union Provisions: We’re getting very close on this important article.

• 2.4.3 Activities of Stewards: OHSU agreed to most of our requests, but rejected covering time when an employee is meeting with a steward regarding a grievance because they can be so open-ended.

• Chief Steward: OHSU is holding on paying for half of the Chief Steward’s hours but is willing to allow their hours to come from the broader steward pool. This would save our union a significant amount of money without reducing the Chief Steward’s availability.

• 2.7 New Employee Orientation: OHSU proposed giving access to steward hours to union leaders who participate in NEO presentations, whether they are stewards or not.

• 2.9 Bargaining Unit Data: They agreed to our concept of giving information from all of their major traveler or agency partners, but wanted the information to only be given “if available” and to exclude rate of pay.

Remote Work Package: 

• 5.34 Remote Work: This is intended to be the general definition for remote work (not “fully remote” or “hybrid remote”), so OHSU made that clearer.

• 6.15.7 Return to OHSU Work Site: Restructured for clarity. They believe any change of 25 or more employees would always be part of an initiative and would thus fall under this provision. They aren’t open to a contract reopener, preferring to bargain these initiatives individually.

• OHSU’s included their processes for moving from fully remote, hybrid remote, or returning to the office from outside the Portland area. They show movement, but our team will need to get into the details to accurately assess how far apart we are on these important provisions.

• MOU X Remote Work Transition: OHSU doesn’t want to do a large-scale assessment and wants to review these on a per-case basis. This information is currently stored at the department level and they would prefer it stay that way, rather than adding a central repository. They linked us to a new remote work assessment as part of their rationale.

AFSCME Afternoon Counters:

Article 2 Union Provisions: We passed this back in the afternoon. We’re inching towards a tentative agreement with a lot of great wins.

• 2.4.3 Activities of Stewards: We added grievances back into the list of things an employee can be released for on paid time. While OHSU has a point that grievance research and preparation can be very open-ended and time consuming, we feel that they should propose what they believe to be reasonable limitations rather than removing them entirely. This also encourages OHSU to resolve grievances at the lowest step possible.

• Chief Steward: We agreed to OHSU’s language that would allow us to use hours from the general steward bank to cover many of the Chief’s hours.

• 2.7 New Employee Orientation: We agreed to OHSU’s language that would allow other union leaders (like executive board members) to facilitate NEO presentations using steward hours whether they are stewards or not.

• 2.9 Bargaining Unit Data: We agreed to most of OHSU’s language, but struck the language that would only provide the data “if [it’s] available.” OHSU wants the out in case they sign a contract with a company that doesn’t provide the same level of reporting. We have a simpler solution: Don’t sign contracts with vendors that violate your contract with our union.

6.6.2/3 Change in Circumstances: We combined 6.6.2 and 6.6.3 to avoid confusion that seems to be arising from the assignment of the additional work and the escalation process over disagreements being separated. We are still making essentially the same request (it goes to an LMC, then to HR and a union representative), but hopefully making it easier to navigate will also help us reach an agreement.

12.6  Cashout of Accrued Time: There are legal limitations on adding more cashout opportunities per year, but we are still pushing to increase our maximum number of hours that can be cashed out upon leaving OHSU. Current contract language is 250. We had asked for 500 originally but have moved to 400. We also want to increase the maximum cashout per year from 80 to 100. Our original proposal was 160. We agreed to language that specifies the hours to be cashed out will be locked as of the final period of the year rather than the more nebulous “end of the year”. This doesn’t actually change what paycheck it will be paid out in or when the hours are locked.

OHSU Afternoon Counters

Tentative Agreement: Administrative Leave Package

As hoped, we saw a lot of movement today and are in a good position for next week’s arbitration.

We apologize that we weren’t able to livestream today, especially since we won’t be able to during next week’s mediation. This has been an important tool for member engagement and transparency and we remain committed to utilizing it going forward. Every challenge we face in implementing our livestreaming is something we can learn from and prepare for in future negotiations.

Please attend our Oregon AFSCME Summer Solidarity Day tomorrow at Mackenzie Hall, if you’re able to. It’s from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM and will be a great opportunity to connect with our fellow AFSCME members from all of the unions at OHSU.

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