Bargaining Update for 4/8/2025
It was a very busy day for our bargaining team. We passed more than twenty proposals and came away with one tentative agreement. Since we’re not meeting with OHSU next week, this was our next to last day to pass new proposals.
AFSCME’s proposals
7.4 Additional Work Proposal: An update to simplify this language for clarity as well as add FTE employees already in overtime and travelers to the order of assignment. We are also requesting to remove the requirement that employees who are placed into overtime would be required to change any vacation or comp time to leave without pay to avoid being paid overtime.
The order of assignment would now be:
Employee(s) who have been canceled or curtailed within the current and previous pay period, who are qualified, and who have advised their supervisor in advance that they are available to perform such work
FTE employees up to designated FTE
FTE employees over designated FTE, but not overtime
Relief workers
Flex workers
FTE employees in overtime
Temp, travelers or student workers
When multiple employees from the same tier request the additional work, the work will continue to go to whoever has the most seniority. Lastly, when assigning mandatory non-overtime, people who are currently on duty would be considered before calling anyone in and would need to be offered as ANI.
7.5.1 Lactation breaks: We want to be sure that there’s no ambiguity about whether our members who need lactation breaks are able to take them. This matches OHSU policy and ONA’s contract. We were also clear that this should be paid time.
8.1 Across the Board Increases: This is the big one. We recognize that every single one of our members is not being paid what they are worth and this proposal is meant to balance the needs of everyone at OHSU. We’ve structured our request so that everyone gets a dollar amount or a percentage, whichever is greater.
Year One: The greater of $10 or 11%
Year Two: The greater of $5 or 9%
Year Three: The greater of $5 or 9%
8.X Service Recognition Award: We’ve proposed a bonus based on years of service with OHSU. We’re asking for:
5 years: $500
10 years: $1000
15 years: $1500
20 years: $2000
$2000 every 5 years of service beyond 20 years.
This would also include an MOU where everyone who would have already qualified for one of these bonuses would receive the one they most recently qualified for. For example, if you’ve been here 7 years, you’d get a $500 bonus once the system is up and running.
9.1.4 Scheduling and assignment of overtime: We are updating this to remove “non-consecutive hours” because anyone who works more than 16 hours in a 24 hour period should have protections.
10.x Short Staff Differential Proposal: A new differential to compensate employees who are forced to take on additional work due to short staffing. The intention is that management will use every tool at their disposal to fill the shift. If they’re not able to, then any incentive that is used would be paid to the person who is assigned the shift.
When possible, this will be tied to the plans created under the new safe staffing law but also has a process to help departments find a plan. This includes an MOU to lay out how it will be implemented and how it will be tracked to help find departments where there are staffing issues so that long term solutions can be found.
11.2-4 Holiday Compensation Proposal: We’ve made relief and flex employees eligible for holiday pay based on their average hours worked over the prior six months. We have also requested that rather than being 8 hours prorated by your FTE, employees be paid their normally scheduled shift. This way people who work 10 or 12 hour shifts won’t be forced to make up their time or use vacation. We also want to be sure that people are paid when their office is closed for a holiday that isn’t covered. For instance, if your department is closed the day after Thanksgiving (assuming they don’t accept our proposal to make that a paid holiday), then you would be paid for that day.
In addition, we asked for on-call on a holiday to be paid at time and a half of your normal on-call rate and on-call hours worked to be double the straight rate of pay.
On Call Package: We heard your concerns and have recalled our previous offer and given OHSU an updated proposal. Here’s a breakdown of this complicated language.
7.8 On-Call. Employees will continue to receive on-call pay in addition to the pay for working when called.
7.8.2 On-call following shift cancellation. This is new 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. This is optional and you do not have to take it. Once called in, the employees are obligated to work the duration of the shift they were originally assigned (unless released by the employer).
9.2.1 Compensation rate. Change from a minimum of 2 hours to a minimum of 3 hours.
9.2.1a Excessive call. This is new language. If an employee works more than 16 hours in a 24 hour period as a result of being on-call will be paid double time for all work performed beyond the 16th hour. These do not have to be consecutive hours.
10.2 On-Call pay. Change from 1 hour of pay per 6 hours to 1 per 4 hours. An employee who is required to report to work while on-call will be paid a minimum of 3 hours, commencing when the employee begins work and will be paid time and a half their regular rate of pay for all hours worked, including the minimum 3 hours.
10.2.1 Supplemental call. After an on-call shift is assigned and open shifts are offered per contract, supplemental call shifts may be offered. Each of these will be awarded by seniority and have a $200 one-time payment applied to each shift.
10.2.2 Supplemental call plus. When immediate after hours coverage is needed while the unit is called or if a call shift is made available less than 24 hours prior to the commencement of the call shift, the manager must offer this as supplemental call plus. Interested employees will have 15 minutes to respond and it will be awarded to the most senior employee. These shifts will have a $400 one-time payment applied and will also include 1 hour of straight pay for every 2 hours assigned on-call, replacing the standard rate.
10.3.2 When a phone call-back is required. Minor tweak to existing language for clarity. This is when you call to notify that you’re on your way when you’re called in on an on-call shift.
10.4 In-house standby compensation. We’re updating this so that you receive the $5 differential on top of your straight rate of pay. If you’re called in, you will be paid time and a half with all applicable differentials.
13 Sick Leave: We’ve requested an extra week and removed the tiered system for Flex employees. This would take us from 12 days to 17 days. We also broadened the definition of what family members you can use sick time to take care of, including chosen family.
13.1.1 Well Being Leave Counter: We want to move this from an MOU into the contract under the article for sick leave. We are asking that this be increased to 16 hours and that relief employees be eligible based on a 6 month look-back (similar to how insurance eligibility works). We also want to increase the maximum bank from 24 to 32 hours.
16.2 Retirement contributions: We are asking for the following:
Employer contributions to 401(a) UPP: 12% of the employee’s total earnings per pay period prior to the completion of 3 full months of employment. This brings us back to where we were in 2015.
Matching contributions to our 403(b) retirement plan starting at up to 6% at the completion of 3 full months of employment, increasing to 8% at 3 years, 10% at 5 years, 12% at 10 years, 14% at 15 years, 16% at 20 years, and 20% at 25 years.
For PERS employees, we’re asking that OHSU pick up a 6% retirement plan contribution. This brings us back to where we were in 2015.
We’re bringing language back into the contract that states that if there’s a change in the law that prevents OHSU from contributing to our retirement plan, we will receive a 5% wage adjustment.
Article 28 Labor Management Committee: We’re expanding the hours available to the people appointed to this committee to better support this important work.
Article 28.3.2 OHSU/AFSCME Career and Workplace Enhancement Center: We’re making a few changes to help the CWE continue to support our members and everyone at OHSU, even as times become more uncertain.
Added support for unit level labor management development and support to CWE’s purview, which will make sure this is done consistently and without undue burden on or influence from AFSCME staff or HR.
When a CWE class has open space, first priority would go to our members, then to managers that supervise AFSCME employees.
Budget increases both to continue existing operations and fund a new position.
Making sure the wage increases we negotiate for the CWE employees (they’re our members) are accounted for in budget increases and allocation.
Making sure that if there’s a year where they have any unspent funds, those can be carried over into the following year. This will give them an additional 6 months to find ways to use those dollars to help out our members and OHSU as a whole.
Appendix A: Another big proposal.
We called out that the non-applicable contract provisions are for employees who are not required to work during specific, scheduled hours.
We crossed out the exclusions for rest periods and meal periods.
We made vacation match our greatly increased ask for hourly employees from last week.
We’ve seen cases where salaried employees are being paid less than their hourly counterpart’s base rate of pay. We’re asking that if someone is converted from hourly to salary, their pay would be estimated by taking their FTE times 2,080 hours, times 1.05 to account for the increased hours they are likely to be paid to work without being compensated.
We’ve added a voluntary process to move from salary to hourly pay.
We removed longevity increases from this portion of the contract only because it should simply follow the same rules that are established for hourly employees. We will have a proposal to better implement longevity raises as part of this contract campaign.
Recognizing that salary employees are often hired at less than a 1.0 FTE but tend to work more than full time hours, we’ve asked that seniority points be more fairly calculated. .76 FTE and higher will have seniority calculated at a 1.0 FTE and .75 and lower will be calculated at a .75 FTE.
Appendix J: This was a huge win in our last contract that we’re improving on this round.
Updated the name to “Workplace harassment, discrimination, and violence.”
Made it clear that harassment and bullying can happen to people regardless of whether they have a protected characteristic or not. Too many times, managers have claimed that bullying “didn’t count” because it didn’t also have bias as a factor. This was never the intention and we made that much more clear.
Reduced OHSU’s civil right’s investigative department time to start an investigation from 60 to 30 days and stated that if there’s an extended delay, we will proceed with the grievance process. Too often, we’ve seen these cases languish for months and our members deserve better.
In addition to the existing protections, we’ve asked that OHSU notify our union if they become aware that an employee is the target of any government agency involving their immigration status.
When someone is the target of harassment, discrimination, or violence, we want to be sure OHSU considers temporarily placing them in another department and that we strongly encourage them to offer paid administrative leave to help them recover. Paid leave does not only need to be used as discipline or to protect the employer during an investigation.
We added some teeth to our demand that the employer track incidents of harassment and discrimination and stated that a failure to notify an employee of their rights will be considered a breach of the contract.
One area Appendix J fell short was in its protections for disabled employees.
We’re demanding that OHSU notify employees of their right to request a workplace accommodation when it is suspected that a disability may be impacting their work performance.
Too often, we see employees progress through the disciplinary process and be terminated while waiting for a determination on a workplace accommodation. Going forward, an employee who has requested an accommodation may not be moved through the disciplinary process for performance or attendance reasons until that request has been completed.
Employees may not be deemed unable to perform their job duties for a task that isn’t a critical job function or if another employee can complete that task without undue burden on the Employer.
While waiting for an accommodation to be processed, OHSU will grant the accommodation on a temporary basis, move the employee to a temporary position they are able to complete, or place them on paid administrative leave. If a temporary accommodation is in place for 6 months, it will be deemed approved.
If the accommodation can not be made, we’re requesting that employees be placed on paid administrative leave for up to 60 days while a suitable position is found and then given layoff rights if there’s no path forward for them at OHSU.
We want to be sure there is an appeals process should an accommodation be denied.
Recognizing the way that healthcare is being increasingly politicized, we’ve asked OHSU to partner with us to protect the privacy of our members who may be the targets of malicious public records requests. This may be legally complicated, so it’s something we will need to work on together with them.
With the shifting political climate, we are asking that Appendix J have a limited reopener so that upon mutual agreement, we can renegotiate portions of this once per year.
MOU 8 Hardship Fund: This is a fund that we partner with OHSU to help our most vulnerable employees through difficult times. We’re requesting that we combine the Hardship Fund and Childcare Fund because so many of the childcare-related requests are due to people being at risk of losing their housing. We asked for more money because the need is so great and with the likelihood we’re going to see the social safety net deteriorate, that need is only going to get greater. We’re asking for a total of $500,000 a year. We’ve also made sure that the language includes information about how to access the fund so that it’s easier for all of our members to find.
MOU 15 Market-Based Wage Committee: We are requesting a classification tiering structure for all AFSCME classifications that require certifications and/or licensure. Advanced qualifications require increased pay.
MOU X Support for Labor Management Committees: We have requested a new position be created at the CWE that would support labor management committees throughout OHSU. This often falls to AFSCME staff and Labor Relations to train participants and manage, but that has never been the best practice.
MOU X Automated Monitoring Implementation: As automated monitoring of employees becomes a more common practice, we want some guardrails on how OHSU can implement such systems. This is both to protect our employees’ rights and to add some speed bumps when OHSU is considering adding these expensive, intrusive applications.
MOU X Community Outbreak Leave: The sad reality is that another outbreak similar to what we saw in 2020 is all but inevitable. This is a proposal to add a bank of 80 hours (adjusted by FTE) that employees could access when they have a qualifying illness. These would be viruses and infections identified by OHA, OHSU, and/or Occupational Health. The idea is that if Occupational Health requires an MMR vaccine and you contract that illness, it would be covered by this bank. We want to work with OHSU to be ready for the next outbreak.
Tentative agreement:
MOU 3 Community Employment Committee - In addition to continuing this work, we are making a specific ask to have OHSU donate $15,000 to the HOSA club at the school of AFSCME’s choice and and $15,000 to the HOSA scholarship fund per calendar year to help prepare future healthcare and research workers. We had some special guests from the David Douglas High School HOSA club join us today and will talk more about this in a separate piece.
OHSU’s proposals:
OHSU is still pushing back on relief workers needing to work x number of hours, rather than being available for them. They were clear that if there are not sufficient shifts or work, that will not count against a relief employee. We’ll continue to work on this once we’re ready to shift to counter-proposals.
OHSU has given us a package that combines all scheduling related language into one article. They were very open about this being a very complicated process and so they sent us a “clean” version that was just what they’d like to see because a version that tracks everything’s original location was, in their own words, unreadable. If you’ve ever been on a bargaining team or seen some of our proposals once they’ve been passed a dozen times, you’ll sympathize.
This is an intriguing idea and we’re always interested in making our contract easier to read. The devil will of course be in the details since we’ll need to be sure our members are served by all of the changes as they’re moved into a new structure.
They’re formally rejecting some of our proposals as part of this, but expect them to come back up as we go through the process. They’re hoping we can agree on structure and then go back and hash out the details and economic asks.
The idea is to think about how we’d have written the contract if it was brand new.
In conclusion:
This was our biggest day of bargaining so far. Next week there won’t be much of an update since we’ll be ironing out our final few proposals for new language. On April 22nd we and OHSU will make those final proposals and then we’ll begin the long process of going through all of the language we’ve passed and begin crafting counters.
The deadline for new proposals is an important landmark on our road to our next contract, but it’s by no means a sign we’re close to the end. We have months of negotiations ahead and we hope you’ll join us to stand for the contract that you deserve.