4.17.23 Updates from our April 12 bargaining session on Paid Leave Oregon

Dear colleagues,

Your UAOSU bargaining team met with the administration team on April 12 for a ninety minute session regarding the implementation of the Paid Leave Oregon (PLO) program.  At that time, we were presented with a counterproposal. Our last proposal, which remains consistent with our original proposal from October of last year, takes account of new information gleaned from documents obtained through a records request to the administration and our last two bargaining sessions.

The administration’s counterproposal was in essence the same as their first counter on March 1 and consisted of simple restatements of the law. Their team emphasized that the counter has to be conservative because there may be changes to the law concerning PLO, between now and when its implementation in September, although they could not name particular law changes they anticipated that would affect our proposal. This counter once again rejects nearly all the specific elements of our proposal. The administration team was unable to enumerate any specific problems with our previous proposals.

We continue to think our current proposal  benefits both our members and ensures the PLO system will work as intended. Our team expressed strong concern about the urgency of the September launch of PLO claims, and to at least establish what the areas of disagreement might be.  Until that happens we will be unable to have meaningful dialogue and come to a shared agreement. We also emphasized how long we have been bargaining about PLO (nearly seven months) with no real progress. 

We expected to receive confirmation of our next session dates from the admin team on Friday but as of this morning have not received that. Once our next sessions are finalized we will post that information on our website. Faculty are invited to observe.  We very much appreciate the support of those who have been in attendance and hope to see more of you in future sessions. Our power in bargaining is related to the strength of our membership. If you haven’t had a chance, you can join your union at uaosu.org/join.

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)