
Oregon Health & Science University and Oregon Nurses Association concluded three days of mediation working toward a successor contract. Below are some of the highlights, without takeaways, as of Friday, Sept. 15:
OHSU’s current offer, organized by ONA's stated priorities, includes:
Wages
- Across the board increases of 15% (year 1) / 5% (year 2) / 5% (year 3)
- A one-time payment of up to $10,000
- Adopting a 30-step wage scale starting on July 1, 2024
- Expanded hours and increased rates for night shift differential that honor seniority ($7 - $9 depending on years of experience, beginning July 1, 2024)
- Increased call pay, charge pay, service lead, preceptor pay, and bilingual bonus
- New prescheduled shift incentive.
- New PANDA differential
- Expanded supplemental call differential
- Removing FTE requirement for full specialty float pool differential rate
Staffing
- Full meal and rest break coverage (no more buddy breaks)
- Meeting or exceeding all state required staffing ratios, no averaging per shift
- Requirement that new staffing plans do not reduce current staffing levels
- Creation of staffing plans for all ambulatory care clinics
- Increasing pool of hours for UBNPC work outside of meetings
- Nurse staffing committee (HBNSC) co-chair to have 0.3 of their FTE devoted to committee work in 2023 and 2024
Workplace Safety
- A comprehensive third-party safety assessment that includes the physical environment, unit safety, training needs, self-defense training, and emergency alert systems, and a minimum investment on safety improvements of $10 million. Decisions on how to invest the $10 million will be determined by an employee committee, which will be 50% represented employees.
- New task force on emergency notifications for employees at all OHSU locations
- Increased nurse presence on safety committees
- Expanded training for personal safety and de-escalation, including trauma-informed/crisis intervention and de-escalation techniques
- Requirement that OHSU will use best efforts to screen patients, visitors, and belongings when entering the ED via metal detector and visual identification (i.e., bracelet) of screened individuals
- DPS services scheduled in the ED 24/7
- Prominent posters informing visitors and patients that violence and threats of violence will not be tolerated
Retention and Recruitment
- Wages, staffing, safety improvements above
- Remove requirement for resource nurses to work 1040 hours for a year of service (credit toward next vacation tier)
- Increased pool of educational hours for resource nurses
- Additional hours for educational leave
- Increased funds for graduate benefit subsidy, and OHSU paying higher percentage of tuition costs for the nurse
- Increased certification bonus
- New remote work article
Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)
- New JEDI grant of .08 hours per nurse that is administered by a new JEDI committee
- This committee receives a pool of 110 paid hours for committee work
- Additional grievance process for trial service period employees who may have been discriminated against
- Earlier access to grievance process for discrimination and harassment complaints
Moral Injury
- Enhancements in health and safety: expanded training in de-escalation and personal safety, trauma-informed care, and crisis intervention
- Clear reporting process for workplace safety and injury issues
- Availability of unit safety assessments upon request by individual units
- Enhanced workplace violence response
- Employee support for suicide prevention
- A new communicable disease task force including RN members
- Paid time off following assault
- Paid time off to deal with car and bike theft/damage at OHSU
- Additional paid bereavement leave
The above offer was current as of Friday Sept. 15. Here is a link to OHSU’s final offer with more details.