OHSU-HOU bargaining: Session 18

Oregon Health & Science University and House Officers Union bargaining teams on Thursday met in their 18th session.

The bargaining session focused on proposals submitted by the HOU team, which centered on insurance benefits and other compensation items:

• 5.1 Annual Salary Stipend: Increasing salaries by 8.5% for the 2024-2025 academic year, 4.5% for the 2025-2026 academic year and 4.5% for the 2026-2027 academic year.
• 5.2 Housing Allowance: Increasing the housing allowance stipend for the current academic year from $2,205 to $5,000, to $5,500 for the 2024-2025 academic year, and then by the wage increase percentages for the remaining years of the contract.
• 5.3 Meal Allowance: Matching OHSU’s meal money proposal from Jan. 4, which creates a tiered system for meal money and includes a minimum monthly amount that all house officers would receive.
• 7.2 Vacation: Matching OHSU’s vacation proposal from Jan. 4, which clarifies how the vacation article should be administered (including a new definition for “day”), encourages house officers to use their full vacation allotment, provides protection against retaliation for vacation leave requests, and clarifies that house officers do not need to use vacation leave on a required rest day (after in-house call shifts) that falls at the start of their vacation.
• 7.3 Sick Leave: Maintaining proposal to provide four additional half days away from training for wellness days.
• 7.5.3 Holiday Leave: Removing previous proposal that house officers could receive an alternative day off, while maintaining proposed $800 bonus to house officers if they worked on one of five named holidays, or on the day the holiday is observed.
• 7.5.1 Parental Leave: Matching OHSU’s parental leave proposal, which encourages house officers to apply for Paid Leave Oregon benefits and allows them to supplement those benefits with leave accruals.
• Article 6 Insurance Coverage and Employee Benefits Council: Maintaining proposal to increase OHSU’s contribution for dependent coverage on the OHSU EPO plan, memorializing the current coverage for children up to the age of 26 and same-sex and opposite-sex couples, along with providing a monthly credit for employees who opt out of insurance coverage, increasing benefits to cover co-pays for urgent care or ZoomCare clinic co-pays and providing tail medical insurance that would continue coverage for 30 days after their program concludes.
• Fertility Preservation side letter: Matching OHSU’s proposal to enter a side letter recognizing that OHSU is exploring benefits for fertility preservation and infertility treatment, and will continue discussing this topic with the Employee Benefits Council and Labor-Management Committee for future plan years.

Tentative Agreement

• 4.7 Access to Pager Systems: Allowing house officers to return and replace OHSU-provided mobile devices every two years, and to receive one replacement OHSU mobile device or pager at no cost if theirs is stolen, lost or damaged.

Next Meeting

The OHSU and HOU teams will resume in person bargaining on Thursday, Jan. 18.

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