Union response to Vaccine Status Data Breach

As you know, on the evening of Monday, October 18th, the State sent an unredacted file with information containing the vaccine and exception status for thousands of state workers to two media outlets. While the information hasn’t been made public, we knew we needed to take quick, clear action to address this privacy violation, which is also a violation of the COVID Vaccine Mandate Letter of Agreement that we bargained with the State.

Here are the actions we’ve taken, we’ll keep you updated as these processes play out.

• On October 20, 2021 we asked the State to file an injunction against the Oregonian to prohibit them from using the data that should not have been shared them (names of employees). The State has let us know they are consulting with DOJ about what their options are.
• On October 26, 2021 we filed an Unfair Labor Practice against the State.
• On October 27, 2021 we filed a grievance due to the violation of our Collective Bargaining Agreement.

These processes are not perfect, and a solution will not be perfect either, but we do expect the State to offer a sincere apology to all employees, to put in place safeguards to prevent this from happening again, and to engage with our Union on what those safeguards are and how to ensure our members information is kept safely and securely in the State’s systems.

In Unity,
SEIU Local 503