After a very long day with a lot of back and forth and deep discussion, your Bargaining Team has declared impasse. We heard you all loud and clear that negotiations were drawn out too long last time and reiterated to management that delays are not going to help OHSU, our patients, our community, or our nurses. We expressed our openness to meet during the 30-day cooling-off period and still have hopes to reach an agreement during that time. It is important to us that management brings serious ideas and respects this process. 
 
OHSU’s counters offered very little in meaningful movement toward the goals of Staffing, Safety, and Retention.
 
Safety:
We were incredibly disappointed in OHSU’s insistence that they need to hire consultants before they will implement safety measures for our hospital. They continued to reassert having OHSU staff perform the duties and responsibilities of trained security staff, which directly conflicts with our goals for safety and retention. 
 
Staffing: 
Management moved backward on their meals and breaks proposal now asserting that meal and break coverage must fit within budgetary goals. Overall, OHSU is not willing to support staffing levels unique to the acuity and intensity of the patients we care for. Additionally, no movement has been made to support adequate staffing in ambulatory care areas to cover for leave or support safe staffing plans for these units.
 
Retention:
Continually denying any additions to our contract that would promote the retention of our nurses has been the greatest barrier to reaching an agreement. OHSU has denied retention differentials, differential percentages (which reinforce retention), and have simply not respected our expertise regarding what we need in our contract. With very little movement on their economic proposals, we remain too far apart to delay further. 
 
During the next week, both parties will cost out their proposals to meet the Employment Relations Board requirements following impasse; this preparation will take our focus and we will not be mediating. We anticipate meeting with management more often in the remainder of the 30-day cooling-off period in hopes of reaching a TA. We hope OHSU will work quickly to take significant steps to meet our priorities and reach an agreement.
 
Watch for an email update that will include a new, comprehensive side-by-side!