We met with the Administration’s bargaining team this morning to continue negotiating the implementation of Paid Leave Oregon (PLO). Thank you to the members who attended this morning’s bargaining session.
Last month, the administration team surprised us by stating that OSU had applied to the state of Oregon to develop their own equivalent paid leave to be administered through The Standard Insurance Company rather than participating in the state plan. At that time, they told us that they did not intend to start employee deductions in January. They were not prepared at that time to sign an agreement to that effect.
This morning, the administration team offered a counterproposal agreeing to refrain from PLO-related payroll deductions “at this time” but removing any reference to the bargaining process. When questioned, they explained that the changes were intended to better capture the complicated timeline and affirmed that we are, in fact, bargaining implementation of PLO. We offered a revised proposal that attempted to address their concerns while ensuring that the administration would not be able to begin any PLO-related payroll deductions without explicit agreement through the bargaining process. We hope for a positive response to our proposal next week.
The administration team also shared a draft communication informing OSU employees that they would not see payroll deductions in January.
We are scheduled to bargain again on Monday, December 19 at 10:00am (register here to observe the session). Now that we’ve made progress on the status of payroll deductions in January, we look forward to returning our negotiations to the other important PLO-related issues that we raised in our initial proposal on October 27. We hope you’ll be able to attend on December 19 and demonstrate faculty interest in these important matters.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining team: Kathleen Stanley (UAOSU President and Lead Negotiator), Louisa Hooven (UAOSU Grievance Chair), Marisa Chappell (UAOSU Executive Vice President), Lori Cramer (UAOSU Representative), H Rakes (UAOSU Representative), Megan Dickison and Dan Andersen (UAOSU Executive Directors)