Bargaining Update – November 3, 2025

Bargaining Update #38

WOC: Work Out of Class

CIU: Complaints Investigation Unit

KSA: Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (related to cultural or language premiums)

ADA: Americans with Disabilities Act

The County presented ten articles and addendums to our team as a package on October 30th, and our Union presented seven articles and addendums. Sign-up to observe our next bargaining session on November 6th via this link. 

BARGAINING SNAPSHOT

  • We are continuing to make meaningful progress to winning a great contract, including reaching two more Tentative Agreements this week.
  • Our Tentative Agreement On Art. 18: Settlements of Disputes includes critical changes to the grievance process to better support our members and provides the option for a Union steward to support members going through the ADA process on County paid time.
  • Our Tentative Agreement on Art 25: Health and Safety lays the groundwork for our Union to call attention to unsafe staffing levels. This represents major progress in addressing a critical issue for many of our members.

County Proposals

Article 2: Definitions

  • The County agreed to our proposal for a 6 month trial-service period.  Our Union has been fighting for this for years and it is a huge victory in protecting new County employees.  
  • The County is maintaining their stance to be able to backfill positions for employees on leave using temporary employees for up to eighteen (18) months or the length of the employee’s leave, whichever is longer. Other than this, they agreed to all of our language from our last counterproposal. 

Article 10: Other Leaves

  • The County has accepted our language stating that they will only “request to view” supporting documentation related to Immigration and Citizenship Leave, but will not ask for or obtain a copy of the documentation as a prerequisite to approving such leave. This is a major step in protecting employees using Immigration and Citizenship Leave from these documents being subpoenaed.
  • The County has rejected our proposal for Critical Incident Leave as they rejected our proposals for Trauma Leave. We have been successful in pushing the County to make a County wide policy for all employees that would provide a form of Critical Incident Leave. We will be able to bargain over a standardized process in the County’s personnel rules. 

Article 15: Job Profiles and Pay Ranges

  • We have won protections for returning employees to maintain their steps on the wage scale.
  • We have made progress in the reclassification process, including providing a longer period of time for reclassified employees to receive retroactive pay.
  • We have also made progress to limit the County from dragging their feet to approve reclassification requests. The County is proposing for the reclassification process to begin when the new position description is completed and signed by the supervisor; we are proposing for the process to begin when the employee first emails their supervisor.   

Article 22: Shift and Work Assignments

  • The County accepted much of our language on our last counter we offered in an attempt to address and simplify “the Big Mess” as it relates to Work-Out-of-Class (WOC) positions. They agreed to drop the distinction of short-term and long-term WOC and to just have a single type of WOC position, which they agreed to offer to current employees before posting externally. This will greatly simplify and create more transparency in the process for our members. 

Article 24: Non-Discrimination

  • Though we’ve made progress in improving this article to better protect our members, the County continues to strike-out our proposed clarification that a microaggression is something that “maintains a power imbalance between protected classes and a dominant culture or group.” The County shared that their interpretation of our proposed definition would mean that managers would never be able to report a microaggression against themselves because they are in a position of power as managers. To be clear, the definition of microaggressions that we proposed specifies a power imbalance between a protected class and the dominant culture group. Federal law prohibits discrimination against individuals on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or transgender status), national origin, age (40 and older), disability, and genetic information including family medical history. Oregon law further extends protected class status to individuals on the basis of age (18 and older) and marital status. Managers are not a protected class, and neither are workers. It has been the practice of the County to operate under the perspective of “based on the list of protected classes, everyone is a member of a protected class”. This mindset has been harmful and traumatizing to employees who report discrimination and microaggressions at work, and was a core issue with how the Complaints Investigation Unit (CIU) operated. 

Addendum E: Auto Reimbursement and Transit Subsidies

  • We have already fought and won to ensure that employees are not required to travel for required work within their scheduled shift on their own time. The County is maintaining their position that if an employee “chooses” to travel to a worksite from their telework location, such as if there is a hybrid meeting they prefer to attend in-person, that the employee should use their break or other unpaid time to complete the travel. 

Addendum K: Limited Duration Positions

  • The County declined our language proposing that Limited Duration positions should first be offered to current County employees before being posted externally.

Addendum L: On-Call & Temporary Employees

  • The County declined our language stating that extension of a temporary employee’s position can only be done with mutual agreement from our Union. 
  • The County declined to have the full benefits of our contract apply to on-call and temporary employees.
  • The County declined to only terminate on-call and temporary employees who have completed 1040 hours of work with the County for just cause. 
  • The County did not agree to on-call and temporary employees having the option of buying into the health plan at their own cost as this is not  allowed by the plan provider.  

Addendum M: Jail Side Assignment Premium

  • The County declined to make disagreements regarding the eligibility of an employee to receive a jailside premium subject to the grievance procedure.

Addendum N: Shelter Staffing

  • The County agreed to include KSA pay in Shelter Staffing pay, but only as ad-hoc. This win will ensure that employees are paid for using their language skills in shelters.
  • The County agreed to drop their proposed language stating that staff who volunteer for a shelter shift will be considered “ad-hoc essential workers.”

Union Proposals

Article 8: Vacation Leave

  • We again proposed that rather than having vacation accruals over the maximum carry-over limits be forfeited that they instead be moved into a general Catastrophic Leave Fund.  

Article 9: Sick Leave

  • We are maintaining our position that any leave accrued by an employee and being utilized as sick time be considered “protected sick time.”
  • We are maintaining our position that before the County considers discipline for excessive absenteeism or misuse of sick leave that the employee first be informed of their options for taking protected leave and the ADA reasonable accommodations process.  

Article 13: Work Schedules

  • We’re pretty close on this one, but clarified in our last counter that an employee’s request to use work time to travel back to their originally scheduled worksite on a same-day reassignment should only be denied if coverage can’t be found for the travel time period. 

Article 18: Settlement of Disputes

  • We accepted the County’s last counter proposal for Article 18 and reached a tentative agreement.

Article 21: Seniority and Layoffs

  • We are again proposing a more equitable method for determining seniority for on-call employees who move into regular status.

Article 25: Safety and Health

  • We accepted the County’s last counterproposal for Article 25 and have reached a tentative agreement. 

Action Items & Upcoming Events

Virtual Listening Session

November 4th from 9 – 10am

We will be hosting a make-up listening session on November 4th, which you’ll be able to join via this link. Please keep in mind that listening sessions should be attended on personal time. We apologize to folks who tried to attend the listening session scheduled on October 21st but weren’t able to enter the virtual meeting room; we had some technical difficulties, but we hope you’ll be able to attend the make-up session. Your questions, ideas, and feedback are important to us. 

Join the Local 88 Strike Fund Committee!

At our AFSCME Local 88 General Membership (GM) meeting on April 16th, a motion was brought forward and passed for our Local to create a Strike Fund by setting aside $250,000 of our reserve funds. A Strike Fund Committee has formed to determine: 

  • eligibility criteria for receiving financial support from the Strike Fund
  • how and when disbursements from the Strike Fund can occur
  • how the Strike Fund can be supplemented 

In addition, the Strike Fund Committee will facilitate member education around strike-readiness as individuals and as a Union, with a focus on self-sustainability and fostering connections and solidarity with community allies. Sign-up to participate in our AFSCME L88 Strike-Fund Committee by filling out this Google form. 

Remember, having a strike fund or being strike ready does not mean we have to strike.  Only you, the membership, can decide if we strike by a super majority membership vote; neither the bargaining team or your cabinet can just declare a strike. Being strike ready is a tool our union can use to build power and show management our strength and solidarity. 

Did You Know?

Update your Profile Images and backgrounds: One simple way to show your support for the best possible contract is to change your virtual meeting backgrounds and profile images. You can find instructions and lots of beautiful images to use here!

Follow Us on Social Media: Stay up to date on all the latest news by following AFSCME Local 88 on our Instagram and Local 88 Facebook!

In Solidarity, 

Your Bargaining Team

Questions? Email us at bargaining@afscmelocal88.org

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