We met for our fifteenth bargaining session with the OHSU management team this week. AURN nurses, from all over OHSU, packed the room as we stood our ground on our highest economic priorities, sharing with management the real truth of what happens when an institution fails to value retention of its nursing staff. Bill Erickson read aloud 19 text pages that went out from nurses during an 18-hour period this week begging for help to safely staff our hospital. As each was read, the reality sunk in of what nurses around the room experience as collective trauma working at an institution that fails its patients. The reality of what we face each day was palpable as management handed nurses tissues but had little response for this. If our hospital cannot properly compensate nurses to stay here, OHSU simply cannot function.

Our team then spoke candidly and powerfully about our top economic priorities. Our membership has said very clearly that our overall top 5 priorities are (1) staffing, (2) retention and recruitment, (3) workplace safety, (4) justice/equity/diversity/inclusion, and (5) preventing moral injury. For this particular bargaining session, we presented an economic package that impacts all of these things. When nurses are properly compensated, we can retain and recruit more nurses. When we properly recruit and retain nurses it improves staffing, decreases workplace violence and injuries, improves justice/equity/diversity/inclusion, and it stops moral injury.

For the economic package we presented to management, we stood strong on the economic items we knew our members value the most, and tried to make reasonable movement on as many other things as we could to help reach a fair agreement. Our team worked hard to develop our economic counter proposal and made sure management understood not just the numbers on the paper, but the WHY behind what we are proposing. To learn more about our proposals be sure to take a look at the side-by-side comparison and/or attend one of our virtual bargaining unit meetings scheduled between now and May 30.

Our team emphasized we are unwavering on our most important economic proposals:
1) Wages (cost of living increases/market adjustment/retention incentive)
2) Night shift differential
3) CNI & CNI+ (rates & eligibility for Resource Nurses)
4) Third Party Health Insurance outside of MODA
5) On Call rates & excessive call incentives
6) Preceptor differential
7) Charge Nurse differential

We also made it clear our members were strongly opposed to management’s attempt to default new nurses to zero retirement contributions if paperwork isn’t turned in. Our experienced nurses know that this results in fewer nurses building their retirement from the start of their careers. We highlighted the issue with management, explaining the importance of in-person new employee orientations where nurses can speak with benefits staff directly about their retirement issues and get properly enrolled. We learned at this bargaining session, that by request, OHSU employees can get in-network coverage for out-of-network mental health providers if there are not enough providers available. This was news to our entire team and demonstrated the need for management to improve communications about our benefits.

As our team worked through each article with management, we noted that we have agreement on many new changes to our contract, though not on our most important items. Seeing progress on smaller items is encouraging, but we’re reaching the point where top hospital administrators need to reassess the total investment they are willing to put into the overall economic package.

Unfortunately, those decision-makers are not in the bargaining room, so we are asking AURN nurses and our colleagues to take part in our RISE TO ACTION events on June 7 so the administration might hear everyone’s collective voices. It will be our last day of bargaining before we start mediation on June 14. We’ll be making an announcement that day and asking everyone to take part throughout the day and evening in distributing signs and other materials around campus and to the larger community to raise awareness about the serious changes needed at OHSU. We’ll be gathering at Growler Guys on the waterfront at 5 p.m. for another Solidarity Social, so be sure to mark your calendars. The AFSCME Graduate Research Union will also be holding a rally at noon on the Mac lawn that day to Close the Funding Gap. We stand together with all OHSU workers to make OHSU better for the entire community.

Bargaining Proposal Summary
These issues are top economic priorities for our members, as articulated by our bargaining team:

Night Shift Differential - Evan Lafky shared that we are 30th of 31 in our night shift differential when looking at west coast comparators, so we are holding firm on our proposal for an increase to 22% and improvement in the hours designated for the differential.
On Call - Corrin Joseph shared that we sacrifice our time, sleep, health, friends, and family to take call. We make less than $40 for 10 hours, before taxes under the current system. OHSU is losing nurses in these units. Having nurses on call is what helps management maintain our Level 1 trauma care status.
Preceptor Pay - Duncan Zevetski shared that OHSU is receiving a huge amount of money from the state for education and development of nurses due to the nursing crisis. We are the ones that train the new graduates. We need to be properly compensated.
Charge Nurse Pay - Harold Fleshman shared that the charge nurse role has become more complex since the pandemic started. The acuity of patients is higher resulting in longer hospital stays. Charge RNs are being pressured to run their units with fewer staff and create throughput solutions that don't exist or aren't possible.
Retirement - Duncan Zevetski shared that our current membership is not happy that management proposed taking retirement from our new nurses through the zero-default system. Management needs to take more time in the onboarding process to explain retirement benefits to the new nurses, In person, new employee orientations are needed to walk people through the process and answer real questions.
Resource Nurses - Diana Bijon shared that these very experienced nurses worked more during the pandemic to support their colleagues and increased patient loads. Over 60% of our resource nurses said they would leave if we default to management’s two MRS per pay period proposal, so we cannot accept this.
Health Insurance - Maria Lavelle shared that there used to be an option to for an insurance plan other than Moda. There have been issues with provider access including not getting appointments in a timely manner and waiting months for care. This cannot continue, we need other health insurance options.
Wages, Retention Incentive, and CNI - Read Bill Erickson’s full statement. 

We gave thorough counterproposals on:

Article 8 Wages
Article 9 Overtime and Premium pay
Article 10 Differential pay
Article 11 Holiday and Vacation Benefits
Article 12 Utilization of Benefit Time
Article 13 Vacation Leave Administration
Article 14 Sick Leave
Article 16 Insurance Benefits
Article 21 Staff development
Article 24 Resource Nurses

And we reached a tentative agreement on Appendix B that agrees to add one more representative for a new AFSCME bargaining unit to the OHSU Benefits Council.

For a summary of our proposals vs managements see our side-by-side chart.