Bargaining Update - 11.24.25

We're circulating a "strike pledge" to assess your support for authorizing a strike vote during bargaining. Check out the pledge here and you can read more in our updated strike and membership FAQ. More details about our first online Strike Town Hall set for December 10th coming soon!

RWU met with OHSU for our third mediated bargaining session last week on Monday, 11/17. The bargaining team came prepared with a revised package of proposals, and while we were able to make progress on some outstanding issues, there are still some fundamental disagreements on several of the union’s top priorities. Nevertheless, we are as dedicated as always to fighting for a fair contract that offers dignity and livable wages to all Researchers - full stop.

We exchanged several articles with management over the course of the day, and were pleased to come to tentative agreements on Career Development, Retirement, and Belonging as the mediated session concluded. These agreements protect our current retirement benefits and for the first time, guarantee some protected time for employees to participate in job-related training. See this comparison document for more details on these tentative agreements and our positions on the outstanding articles.

However, management continues to insist that they’re unable to meet our demands on many of our economic priorities, including wages. After more than 24 hours of mediation, they still haven’t come to the bargaining table with a serious offer that would lift up our lowest paid workers, bring our wages up to market value, and keep pace with inflation over the life of the contract. They’ve also continued to unjustly withhold the 2% status quo wage increases that researchers were entitled to last month, and our unfair labor practice suit will be moving forward.

We’re proud to say that the bargaining team has also brought in expertise from a financial researcher, whose analysis paints a much sunnier picture of OHSU’s current financial circumstances than that described by management. He sat in briefly on one of our joint sessions and offered a counterpoint to OHSU’s persistent narrative around the need for austerity, bolstering our demands for fair wages now.

Lastly, we were offended to receive another Employment Practices counterproposal that fails to address critical issues in researchers forced to work outside of their class without equitable pay. While management acknowledges that this is a serious concern, their proposed language does not provide an employee-initiated reclassification process or other solutions beyond “work out of classification should not be assigned.” We’re unwavering in our position that rather than limit what researchers can do to cut costs, our expertise should be called upon; with the corresponding equitable pay, of course.

The bargaining team needs your support - now more than ever. We’d like to thank everyone who was able to attend the RWU Takes Flight event at the top of the tram on Thursday (see below when President Elnahal walked through our action  and afterward when a group of us gathered outside); this is the kind of exposure our union needs!

Other updates:

• You can also check out our new wage calculator that shows how your salary will be affected by RWU’s current proposal vs. OHSU’s current proposal.

Your RWU Bargaining Team,

Henry Harrison

Lynne Swarbrick

Victoria Halls

Lillian Raley

Wes Horton

Cort Cox

Anna Levy

Caitlin Burbank