Bargaining Update - October 31st, 2025

The bargaining team had our second mediated session on Tuesday, October 28th with a state mediator from the Employment Relations Board. During the morning session, OHSU presented us with their economic counter-proposal. Although the specific language cannot be made public, we can share the salient details of their offer:

Proposed across the board wage increases:

• Year 1: 3% ATB or $1/hour, whichever is higher. Minimum wage of $20/hour
• Year 2: 2% ATB, minimum wage of $21/hour*
• Year 3: 2% ATB, minimum wage of $22/hour*
• Ratification bribe bonus of $750 for >0.5FTE or $200 for <0.5FTE employees if ratified without a strikeAND OUR ULP IS WITHDRAWN.

*The proposal includes language that reserves the right to initially place a new hire slightly below the minimum wages outlined in Year 2 and 3.

While this proposal shows some movement towards our position, it is still nowhere close to what we believe our members deserve!

In the afternoon, we had a number of small group discussions with management and the mediator present, which allowed both parties to openly communicate their priorities and concerns with a neutral third party to guide the discussion and make sure we heard one another. As a result, we have come very close to agreement on several articles, including Retirement, Hours of Work, and Career Development.

Take a look here to compare our positions- and check out our wins!

We are still waiting to see how OHSU upper management responds to the Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) complaint we filed on October 15th, objecting to the withholding of 2% status quo wage increases our members should have received this month. Our complaint is very strong (see complaint and supporting docs below), so we consider it telling that they are making any ratification “bonus” contingent on withdrawing that ULP.

Our next two full mediated sessions will be held on November, 17th and December, 2nd. We look forward to keeping our membership updated as this process moves forward!

Other updates:

• 2% Merit Increase Reminder: Research Workers have been denied this pay increase that we rightly deserve! In response AFSCME/RWU have filed an Unfair Labor Practice against OHSU over the fact that researchers will not be receiving the 2% raise that unclassified administrative (UA) employees received this month, despite years of Researchers and UA receiving identical raises following the GROW process.You can view a "statement of facts" summary of the ULP filings here and see all the ULP supporting documentation here.
• Have questions about mediation and next steps?: Here are the slides and recording of our September RWU General Membership Meeting and Mediation Town Hall. The focus at this meeting was to provide more context for the next steps of RWU bargaining, including the mediated bargaining process and what comes next. Please note: the video recording will take some time to load and has about 20 seconds of silence at the beginning.

- RWU