We met with the administration’s bargaining team on Wednesday, March 1, 2023 to continue negotiations over the implementation of Paid Leave Oregon (PLO), the state’s new program that will provide up to twelve weeks of paid leave to most Oregon workers. PLO allows individual employers the option to pay all or some of the employee contributions or to develop their own equivalent (or better) plan as a substitute for the state program. The OSU administration decided to create an equivalent plan for OSU that would be administered by The Standard Insurance Company.
We have been at the bargaining table with the OSU administration since October over the implementation of PLO at OSU (you can read our previous updates here). For the first time, the administration team brought a counterproposal to our initial proposal from October 27, 2022.
Our October 27, 2022 proposal included two important provisions. We wanted OSU to pick up the entire cost of the program rather than requiring bargaining unit members to contribute .06 percent of salary. We also wanted OSU to maintain bargaining unit members’ full salary while they are on PLO. These provisions would ensure that all bargaining unit members could benefit from the program.
While we were excited to finally receive a counter proposal, it is clear we still have a long way to go. The administration’s proposal removes both the employee pickup and the full salary replacement. In addition, their counter proposal leaves many questions unanswered, including how PLO would coordinate with the three weeks of fully paid family leave we won in our Collective Bargaining Agreement and many of the mechanics of how the program would work.
We are meeting again with the administration team on March 8 from 2:30-3 and March 22 from 2-3. I encourage you to register to observe these sessions, where we hope to get answers to our many questions in order to prepare an effective counter proposal that safeguards our pay and leave.
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)