BREAKING - RWU Has Declared Impasse
The bargaining team met for our fourth mediated bargaining session on Tuesday, December 2nd, and made a unanimous decision to declare an impasse. This begins a new phase in the bargaining process, which we’re hopeful may encourage management to come to the table with a serious offer that addresses our members' priorities. It’s become clear over the course of recent successful contract negotiations with other unions at OHSU that management will not begin to take our demands seriously until the bargaining team takes this step.
Continuing negotiations at our current slow pace would only lead to weakening our positions, and our team cannot ask members to ratify management’s current version of the contract. Management came to the table in our most recent session with an offer that includes wage increases ranging from 2% to 3.5% in each year of the contract for all but our lowest paid members, who would receive hourly dollar increases that could exceed these amounts. While this does show some slight movement from management’s last offer, it’s still nowhere near the kinds of wage increases we’re fighting for.
The bargaining team remains committed to preserving a progressive scale for wage increases, ensuring that our lowest paid members receive the highest wage increases in our final agreement. However, we simply cannot accept this proposed level of wage growth, which would likely fail to keep pace with inflation for most of our members. This would lock in an effective pay cut for many members, and do nothing to compensate researchers appropriately for experience gained over the life of the contract.
Declaring impasse does not mean bargaining or mediation will stop. It’s our hope that we may still be able to reach agreements with management on some outstanding non-economic priorities in the coming weeks. However, this move does shift bargaining onto a clearly defined timeline, which includes the following:
- Final public positions from both the bargaining team and management, which must include estimated costs, within seven days (Dec. 9th at 11:59pm).
- A cooling off period, during which negotiations will continue, but neither the bargaining team nor the employer can escalate to the next steps (on or around Jan. 8th).
- After the cooling off period has concluded, management has the ability to implement their version of the contract, and the union has the ability to strike.
We want to be clear that declaring an impasse does not guarantee the union is moving rapidly toward a strike, nor does it guarantee that management will move quickly toward implementing their version of the contract. We plan to continue negotiating in good faith during the coming weeks, but this move does open up the possibility of these outcomes on a clear, legally defined timeline.
In the meantime, we encourage you to join the General Membership Slack for updates, follow us on instagram @researchworkers and attend our Strike Town Hall is this on Wednesday, December 10th at 6pm via Zoom. You can register here. Come with all of your questions and we'll get you answers!
Lastly, we're circulating a "strike pledge" to assess your support for authorizing a strike vote during bargaining. Sign the pledge here and you can read more in our updated Strike & Membership FAQ here.
In solidarity,
Your RWU bargaining team:
Lynne Swarbrick
Wes Horton
Lillian Raley
Victoria Halls
Caitlin Burbank
Anna Levy
Cort Cox
Henry Harrison