- Watch the Bargaining Update Video for March 31, 2025
- Read the update
- Print and post the update on the Union Bulletin Board at your worksite
Safety & Health in the Workplace
At this week’s bargaining session the Bargaining Team came ready to work over some of our most important issues, like health and safety. We received a counter proposal from the County that was simply disrespectful.
The County rejected our Union’s proposed changes to Article 25: Safety & Health. Labor Relations claimed our proposal “eroded their management rights.”
- There’s nothing harmonious or cooperative about fully denying an attempt to work together to address employees’ concerns about excessive workload, toxic stress and its impact on our health, and determining minimum safe staffing levels for all Departments.
- Management states they have the right to not work with our Union to make workplaces safe and healthy.
There’s serious consequences for the County to claim this as their right. We reject its stance on being unable to guarantee employees’ health. Our Union believes that safety and health are connected – addressing both will make our workplaces better. Frontline staff have been reporting unsafe and stressful working conditions, and it’s our responsibility to push for better ways of resolving them. Hostile work environments and excessive workloads are making us sick.
We proposed changes to another Article affecting the safety & health of employees: Article 24: Non-Discrimination
- We proposed a stronger definition of a Microaggression to better address power imbalance in what HR and management are reporting as “microaggressions.”
- Our Complaints Investigations Unit (CIU) is terrible. It’s ineffective, and has harmed marginalized employees for years. They play a part in making the workplace unsafe.
- We need a Protected Class Complaint process to do what was promised – properly investigate and hold accountable the people harassing, discriminating against, and violating the civil rights of our employees.
- Employees and our Union are fed-up with CIU, and we’ve been vocal about it – both in our official stance in the 2/7/2025 Member Update, and in The Oregonian.
- Our Union will reign in CIU or we’ll make the County cut the cord.
County Proposals
Counter – Article 25: Safety & Health (discussed above)
Counter – Article 3: Recognition
- The County did not agree to our proposal to remove the list of employees exempt from Union Representation.
Union Proposals
Article 24: Non-Discrimination (discussed above)
Article 21: Seniority & Layoff
- On-Call Seniority calculations; right now the language is confusing enough to allow for On-Call employees to get 2/3rds of what they’re supposed to.
- Increasing the length of time an employee is on a recall list to 3 years
- Making it so if you are recalled for a position that doesn’t meet your needs, you won’t be removed from the recall list.
- Changing the deadline for adding KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities) to a position to January 1st instead of March 1st.
- Making sure employees on a recall list are notified when taken off, and are allowed to Grieve if they’re removed unfairly.
Did You Know?
Travel Time is Work Time!
Management walked back their own past practice earlier this year, when they handed down “clarification” to supervisors on travel time policies. Despite years of paying time spent traveling between worksites, the County’s new stance is that travel between worksites shouldn’t be paid—because some might be your home.
Here’s an example: you’re a Case Manager. Your division downsized and there’s no guarantee you can get one of the drop-in desks at the new office. You start work at home most days so at least you’ll have a seat, then go out to client meetings as needed, and log your full shift at the end of the day. But your manager now says travel rules “have been clarified by HR.”
The next day, you wake up to a call from your client’s hospital across the county, and you need to meet with them that day. For the two hour drive there, you won’t be paid. You won’t be paid for the drive back to your home office either. You’ve worked with the County for years, several of them under the same manager. Neither of you have heard of this before.
Management would like us to believe they’re just “adhering to state law,” and this is the way it’s always been. In reality, the County is stretching the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) definition of travel to cover situations where it doesn’t apply. The County is using loopholes and in some cases directing managers to scrutinize time entry and calendars.
Interesting that they’re “clarifying” this practice during a budget shortfalls in the millions.
It gets worse. The County has been requiring employees, in some cases, to use their accrued paid time while travelling from their home office to their secondary worksites.
HR says this is business as usual—but managers in multiple departments admit they’ve never heard of this before. Some are ignoring the new “clarity” entirely, and telling staff to log their travel time as work time anyway.
So what is this really? Law or interpretation? Past practice or new guidance? Applicable to all or only some?
Either way, the County’s dodging responsibility, and nickel and diming us out of PTO. Enough! The BOLI definitions say something else—that the County must pay any travel time promised in the contract. Stand with your Bargaining Team and let’s get it in writing: Travel Time Is Work Time! Demand a fair contract now!
Action Items
Our next Member Action Team meeting will be combined with our Bargaining Delegation, so please come through on April 7th from 6:30pm to 7:30pm & hear the Team give updates on what’s happening at the table.
Decorate your bulletin board or office space to rep your Union with our new posters! Show management you’re paying attention to what they say at the table. Soon, we’ll reach out to you with more actions to demonstrate our solidarity and publicly show the County what we care about most in bargaining.
