SALEM — Events took a strange turn this summer when a union representing about 7,000 workers at Oregon Health and Science University was trying to renew its contract.
Senior physicians at Yale New Haven Hospital were in the middle of presentations during a recent meeting of the graduate medical education committee when a group of interns, residents and fellows interrupted.
At the front of the room, they unfurled a banner painted with the words “Doctors Are Humans Too.”
I am so proud of our residents and fellows for filing for union representation! They are integral to OHSU's success and absolutely deserve fair wages, affordable health insurance and basic accommodations such as adjacent on-call rooms. Welcome to the AFSCME family everyone!
-Cassie Barton, PharmD, BCCCP Trauma Surgery Critical Care Pharmacy
Dear Resident Physicians of Oregon Health and Sciences University,
Congratulations on joining the AFSCME union! We learned of your successful efforts recently. I am a representative for the AFSCME union doctors from Eugene and Springfield, Oregon, and we joined in Summer 2017. We are the primary care physicians union bargaining unit with Local 2831, and we take care of under-served patients at the Community Health Centers of Lane County.
To the Resident Physicians of Oregon Health and Sciences University,
We are glad to hear that you just became AFSCME union physicians!Congratulations! We are the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association (PNWHMA) in the Eugene-Springfield area, under the umbrella of the AFT union. We hope you will enjoy many of the same improvements we have had from joining a union.
We did it! After 21.5 hours in mediation, following more than five difficult months of bargaining, AFSCME Local 328 and OHSU have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. Thanks to the support of our members, our bargaining team was able to negotiate a fair contract with a lot of beneficial new language, while fighting off health-insurance take-backs, PTO and union-busting tiered contract language. Highlights include: