Around 170 members joined us for our powerful virtual staffing presentation in bargaining this week. Our bargaining team is very thankful for this support- your presence shows management how important safe staffing is. We had several special guest speakers reiterate the importance of our staffing proposals since it’s been three months and we have not received a response from management.

The speakers included, but were not limited to: Oregon State House Representative Travis Nelson, ONA’s Professional Services Director Matt Calzia, Staffing Committee Co-Chair Erica Swartz, Oregon Nurse Staffing Advisory Board member (and staffing committee member) Lace Velk and Labor and Delivery RN Jaimie Smith. Their staffing testimonies are here.

As Jaimie Smith, a labor and delivery nurse bravely shared: “It is immoral to play roulette with people’s lives and yet we do every single day by not having enough staff to ensure we can get those babies out safely. Ask yourself, how would you feel if this was your labor? If this was your baby? If this was your loved one? Please protect our patient’s safety, your safety, your loved one’s safety… by supporting ONA’s propositions to ensure staffing is safe, evidence-driven, lawful, and ethical.”

We had made a large presentation in February expressing how much our members care about our safe staffing proposals, and yet management claimed they would not address staffing in negotiations, just defer to state law. We made it clear this was not acceptable. As Representative Travis Nelson stated, “I am disappointed that after 14 sessions of negotiation, that management has not passed a staffing counter. The current house bill should not impede any staffing proposals. I strongly encourage OHSU to do the right thing and do right by their nurses. They do not deserve to be treated poorly. I know the contract expires June 30. I don’t believe it is in OHSU’s best interest to allow the contract to expire.”

However, things quickly changed after discussion ensued with management. Through the power of our members standing together, management has agreed they will negotiate staffing and will prepare a counter proposal after all! In addition, our new Chief Nursing Executive Brooke Baldwin joined bargaining for the first time to hear our staffing testimony. We appreciated how engaged she was, asking clarifying questions and thanking each nurse after they finished speaking. We look forward to seeing her follow through on next steps.

If our most important priorities around staffing are agreed to, we know our retention rates will drastically improve, moral injury will decrease, and we will be set up to care for our patients safely and properly.
Acute Care Float Pool nurse Dani Chiero said, “I was inspired by the ONA nurse leaders who joined us from the Oregon legislature, ONA’s Director of Nursing Practice and Professional Development, the Oregon Nurse Staffing Advisory Board, the hospital staffing committee, and from multiple direct care areas to demand OHSU take concrete steps to ensure safe staffing. Our nurses shared many stories about how current unsafe staffing practices at OHSU negatively impact our patients and our nurses, some of which brought me to tears. I’m hopeful our new CNE Brooke Baldwin will be moved by what she heard our nurses share and will do everything within her power to support our nurses and our patients by encouraging OHSU to support safe staffing.”

Overall, our team believes we finally got management’s attention on how crucial it is for them to appropriately respond to our staffing proposals. Hopefully, we will see their response in our next bargaining session on May 24 at OHSU.

------------------------------

AURN Bargaining Session Summary #14

New Article 30: Remote Work
After the morning presentation on staffing, management responded in the early afternoon to our newly proposed article on remote work with the following:
• They largely agreed to our definitions section and fully agreed to our regular remote work, fully remote, hybrid remote and occasional remote sections.
• They also largely agreed to our remote employee’s worksite section, which includes official duty station, remote work site and OHSU work site definitions.
• There is disagreement on whether an employee can change to remote status. We believe it should not be unreasonably denied. They believe it falls under management rights. There is agreement that there must be 30-days’ notice of nurses having to return to the OHSU worksite.
• In the furniture, technology and equipment section, they disagreed with our language regarding all expenses being reimbursed: internet service, office supplies, and costs associated with mailing and faxes. They are proposing language saying they will provide standard technology and equipment, as defined by the Employer.
• They emphasized the cost savings to the employee for working remotely and not paying for transportation and parking. We emphasized the cost savings to the employer for every work station at OHSU they do not have to provide, and we requested the dollar amount saved by not providing OHSU workspace.
• They disagreed with our language regarding productivity programs being clearly labeled and identified, along with our proposal on not using hidden methods for tracking work or using that information for discipline. They stated that employees should just assume everything is always monitored and tracked.
• They proposed that an employee will have under two hours to switch out malfunctioning equipment. We asked that when a nurse is unable to find a suitable alternate work location, compensation for the remainder of the shift be provided. They did not agree.
• In the minor children at home section, they did agree that minor children and dependents can be present in the home, as long as the employer’s information, security, privacy, etc. is protected.
• They added alcohol testing to the drug testing section. We are mostly in agreement on this section.

Article 22 Grievances
They also responded to our proposal on the grievance procedure:
• Agreeing with us on not allowing audio/video recording of meetings
• Countering on what constitutes an association (aka group) grievance. We would like it to be for more than two people, they want it to be more than five people. They did agree with our proposal that association grievances only have to affect nurses from one department, currently the contract says two departments.
• They did not agree to allow union representation at pre-grievance meetings.

New Oncology Float Pool MOU
• They agreed with us on establishing an oncology float pool for inpatient Adult Oncology, CHH Oncology and the CHO Clinics. The intent is for the float pool to replace nurses for planned and unplanned absences, increases in patient activity and other staffing deficits.
• They disagreed on our 20% differential and only offered what is currently in the contract for specialty float pool nurses which $4-8 per hour based upon FTE (see Article 10.9)
• They agreed with us on core inpatient oncology nurses not being required to float to outpatient and vice versa.
• They agreed with us on orientation process, as identified by the UBNPC.
• They agreed with having paid travel time and mileage between clinics, etc. be reimbursed at the federal mileage rate.
• On parking, if there is not availability, they offered to adjust the time to report to the assigned unit and that no occurrences should occur due to lack of parking when traveling to work sites.

Article 25 Transportation & Parking (being renamed: Campus Access and Commute Services)
• Agreement on AURN being able to participate in the determination of any parking rate changes.
• Bi-annually, we have rights to parking data and sales information.
• They agreed to include in the parking app a way to accommodate nurses who must stay past their shift to make adjustments rather than calling in (within six months of the effective date of this contract).
• For employees with ADA accommodations, they largely agreed with us on providing a reserved parking space that satisfies ADA requirements.
• On bus passes, they said they would respond in the next economic proposal.
• On transportation and parking safety, they agreed to our proposal of a paid shift of administrative time if your vehicle or bicycle is stolen at OHSU. They did not agree with securing the lots 24 hours a day nor paying for loss of personal property in general. They shared that they are trying to get better surveillance over the next couple of years.