|
Hey everybody, this is Eli Pavlatos. I’m a Computational Biologist and a member of the RWU Bargaining Council, and I attended the RWU bargaining session yesterday so that I could share this summary with you all.
Before getting into the details of the session, I just want to say that amidst all of the uncertainty around NIH funding, it felt really good to see researchers getting the opportunity to express our concerns directly to OHSU leadership, including President Stadum who joined briefly. We get these opportunities because we’ve done the hard work of unionizing, and it’s very rewarding to see our bargaining team in action. They’re an incredibly impressive group of people, and they’re doing everything that they can to advocate for us during this stressful time.
Here are some of the key takeaways from this round of bargaining:
While we don’t know what the future holds for NIH funding, we wanted to be proactive, so RWU submitted a Letter of Agreement (LOA) to OHSU that contains the current language from the Layoffs article as it was last passed across the table. The purpose of this LOA is to have a policy go into effect immediately without having to wait for the full contract to be ratified. Our goal in submitting this letter was to have any job losses related to NIH funding cuts be classified as layoffs, close to what they would be like under a ratified final contract. The LOA would also expedite the creation of a preferred rehire list which would give laid off workers the first opportunity to fill vacant positions that they are qualified for. OHSU is considering this proposal and we should get a response sometime in the next couple of weeks.
As I mentioned before, President Stadum joined the session for about 20 minutes. He summarized the proposed reduction in NIH indirect costs and explained his rationale for creating the Research Restructuring Commission (see the OHSU Now post about this here). Our bargaining team expressed concern that the commission will be used to justify layoffs even if significant reductions in NIH funding do not occur, and President Stadum responded by saying that that is not the purpose of the commission. RWU will continue to monitor this situation, and we also asked to be put in contact with Marc Freeman and Susan Hayflick who are the co-chairs of the commission in order to see about research unions joining this effort.
OHSU shared counter-proposals that contained mostly minor changes to the Corrective Action, Grievance and Arbitration, Union Rights, and Employment Practices And Procedures articles. Our bargaining team is reviewing the proposed changes, and was able to reach a tentative agreement with management on the Union Rights article.
Bargaining Session Observation Link:
https://ohsu.webex.com/ohsu/j.php?MTID=ma1a89de4c1b53e3209ae8aaeb8218598
Meeting Number:
2867 749 7423
Meeting Password:
G5Tm3D2ZmgQ
Join from a video or application:
Dial [email protected]
You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter your meeting number.Join by phone:
+1-503-388-9555
Toll Access code: 28677497423
Global call-in numbers:
https://ohsu.webex.com/ohsu/globalcallin.php?MTID=mde484d4fd69e728b416856acd57b247e
Your RWU Bargaining Team,
Henry Harrison
Lynne Swarbrick
Victoria Halls
Lillian Raley
Wes Horton
Cort Cox
Anna Levy
Caitlin Burbank
