We surveyed about 50 percentage of graduate workers over the past few months, and our concerns are real. In fact, 84 percent of survey respondents believe that OHSU should be doing more to address our issues.
According to Dr. Danny Jacob’s email from last Thursday, OHSU is making changes in order to address the budget deficit brought on by COVID-19. Dr. Jacobs’s email contained information about how salary cuts will be implemented for research staff and faculty. If anyone attended Peter Barr-Gillespie’s Research Town Hall yesterday, you may have heard that OHSU will likely approach GRU to re-negotiate stipends.
We are writing to give you more information about our union: Graduate Researchers United (GRU). We also want to inform you of the major articles GRU has proposed during bargaining.As you read about our proposals, we would like to remind you that this is a negotiation process and that we do not expect our final contract to reflect our initial offers. Like many negotiations, the initial offers from both sides are not aligned, with the goal of ultimately reaching a compromise.
1. Will the Graduate Researchers United contract destroy graduate education at OHSU?
The GRU contract is written by, negotiated by, and ultimately approved by graduate students. If management proves that anything in the contract threatens the school, we will stop pushing on these issues.
When bargaining is finished and the contract goes into effect, all members of the bargaining unit (OHSU PhD students who receive stipends) will receive the benefits listed in the contract. Before that happens, however, there are already benefits to being represented by GRU.
Benefits of Union Recognition
You can’t be fired without Just Cause, a formalized 7-part procedure.
Table Discussions – Union and Management bargaining teams sit together to discuss proposals. Only bargaining team members can speak during table discussions.
Caucuses – Union and Management bargaining teams discuss proposals privately. When you attend a bargaining session, this is when you get to be a part of the conversation. The bargaining teams will nearly always hold a caucus before making major decisions.
