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8/1
Your Central Table Bargaining Team has reached a Tentative Agreement with state management—thanks to the strength, unity, and actions of members like you from across Oregon.
After months of negotiations—including long hours in the final days of bargaining, plus last week’s marathon sessions—your elected bargaining team secured a contract early this morning at 5:21am that provides meaningful improvements in wages, benefits, equity, and job security.
This victory wasn’t just won at the table—it was won by YOU. Every action we took together—purpling up on the job, showing up at rallies and informational pickets, contacting decision makers by phone and email—made a difference and helped win this agreement.
Here are the highlights:
Economic Justice
- COLAs totaling more than 6.5% over the life of the contract
- This will include a 2.5% COLA on 2/1/26 and 4% on 1/1/27
- Steps: Non-topped out workers will get steps as scheduled (yes, we have to bargain this) and a new (11th) top step on 2/1/27. Employees who have been with the state for 10 years and are topped out will receive their new step immediately on that date
- Health Insurance: Maintained access to affordable healthcare for the life of the contract; language that protects 1% premium share plans in the face of rising healthcare costs
- Differentials
- Essential Worker Differential increased to $4/hour
- Study on Fire Incident Management Team
- Process to bargain differential for ODHS investigation in residences
Safety and Workload
- We fought back and won against management takeaways on the discrimination process
- Safety assessment for workers who are facing harm when filing discrimination and professionalism complaints
- If requested, managers must meet with staff that make workload prioritization requests
- Increased access to critical incident leave for traumatic incidents on the job
- Creation of a committee that will determine best practices and make recommendations for a policy on Employee Resource Groups
21st Century Workplace
- New remote work appeals process that allows workers to appeal remote work denials or recensions to a labor management committee
- Inclement weather leave expanded by 16 hours per biennium
- Non-essential workers get essential worker differentials when required to report in person during a closure
- Extended bargaining process to come to an agreement on an LOA on AI implementation to September 2025
- A committee to review the layoff language in the contract and recommend improvements
A Strong Union
- Extends 12 hours of paid leave - previously only available to stewards - to sublocal officers as well.
- Increases size of Central Table team from 10 to 12 members
- Required notice to the union when management submits reclassification request
Payroll Transition
- Transition to biweekly pay in July of 2027
- $1700 one-time payment in July of 2027, plus
- 40 hours of leave granted 90 days prior to payroll transition that can be cashed out for transition costs
- A Joint Labor Management Advisory Committee will meet to discuss and make recommendations for the transition
- Commitments on:
- No change in FTE status because of the transition
- Management is responsible for approving timesheets and ensuring workers are paid, even when time is not submitted or approved on schedule.
- Improved training on Workday payroll for represented employees and required training for management on time approval.
- Beginning January 2026, overpayments can only be recouped going back 364 days. All overpayments qualify for a repayment plan regardless of how the overpayment was issued
- Rapid response process in place on payroll errors when transition occurs to ensure issues are handled immediately
...and much more!
What’s Next?
This agreement is tentative until members vote to ratify. Members will receive a full summary of the agreement when they vote. In the coming days, we’ll send:
• Information on ratification meetings and Q&A sessions
• Voting instructions and deadlines
Together, we made this happen. Let’s finish strong—review the TA, attend a session, and cast your vote!
7/23
The Central Table Bargaining Team spent the first two days of this week negotiating with management on a lot of key priorities and made a lot of progress! We had major wins on our remote work article and inclement weather.
- On remote work we have created a panel that includes our union being able to respond to remote work grievances, so now workers will have a voice in that process
- On inclement weather, we increased the amount of inclement weather leave from 40 to 56 hours—the first increase we have won since the language was initially won.
Neither side passed updated economics, but we do expect more conversations on economics early next week. Management heard us when we told them to do better on payroll. They made a lot of changes in response to the concerns we shared last week. Specifically, they made these moves:
- They are now addressing the gap created through the biweekly payroll transition by giving workers 40 additional hours of vacation that they can cash out to help cover expenses AND a one-time $1,500 payment. This compensation will cover the transition gap for most workers, which we have stated needs to happen. This is a ton of movement from their initial $500.
- They have increased the specificity of what will be done leading up to the transition to assure mistakes will not happen.
We communicated that they still have a long way to go to assure our team that they can implement this transition successfully and that the process needs to be thought out and transparent. We are looking forward to seeing what they show us when we meet next week. We also need to hear from you about this issue. Tomorrow, we will be launching one more survey on this proposal. Be on the lookout for that! Here are the highlights of the tentative agreements we reached:
- Article 138 – Working Remotely: As mentioned above, we have made a lot of progress here!
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- We have bargained a new appeals process for denials and rescissions. Appeals will be heard by a committee that is made up of one union representative and one LRU representative. This will give workers a new pathway, once the grievance process is exhausted, to address remote work issues.
- We’ve added language stating that when management is considering if someone is eligible for remote work, ad hoc in-person meetings, trainings, or other such requirements cannot be the sole reason for determining that someone is not eligible.
- Out-of-state employees must receive at least 30 days' notice of a rescission of their remote work request.
- Article 123 – Inclement and Hazardous Conditions: We were able to win a couple of important pieces of language in this article.
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- DAS will publish the factors that they utilized to make closure decisions. We fought hard on this issue to lift up the disparate treatment that rural workers have communicated. We believe this change will give more clarity for those workers about why offices remain open during inclement and hazardous conditions.
- We’ve increased the number of hours available for people to use from 40 to 56!
- Equity and Discrimination - We discussed with management how to better structure a committee that we won in bargaining two years ago. This committee receives data from the state that helps it understand any trends around promotions, disciplines, separations, and complaints as they are connected to protected classes. We want to continue the work that this committee started but are exploring if a different make-up of the committee might have a bigger impact on the work it is doing.
- Article 70 – Layoff: We agreed to a joint committee with management to review and improve the layoff contract language. This committee will also review available resources for employees during the layoff process and make recommendations for improvements to those resources.
- Article 71 – Seasonal and Intermittent Employees: This is another place where we were in agreement with the state that the language in the article is in need of review. We are forming a joint committee that will include representatives from all the agencies that utilize seasonal employees to review both the current contract language and agency processes. This committee will make recommendations for improvements to both of these things.
7/17
Last week, state workers took action in dozens of cities around Oregon. SEIU 503 members came together and demanded that management do better at the bargaining table and meet workers needs on a new top step, better COLAs and maintaining discrimination language in the contract. It was clear in bargaining this week that these actions had a HUGE impact as we saw more movement from management than we have seen all year. Because of this A LOT happened at the bargaining table this week. Here is a breakdown of the biggest priorities:
At this point in bargaining, it is about what money the Legislature has approved for the next two years. They approved $300 million—the second highest ever—but it still limits what we can achieve. With the changing economy and shifting federal policies, the budget will continue to fluctuate, aligning state and union priorities more closely. For example, the state delayed the top step in the contract to save money, but they knew we wouldn’t settle without it.
COLAs – Both sides made movement on COLAs, and we are getting closer to an agreement. On Tuesday management proposed a 2.5% increase on 12/1/2025 and 3.45% on 12/1/2026. Again, this was only because of the action workers took on July 10th. On Wednesday, we updated our COLA proposal to a CPI (with a minimum of 2% and a maximum of 3.5%) on 11/1/2025 and CPI+2% (with a minimum of 3% and a maximum of 4.5%) on 11/1/2026. We continue to push management on the concept of attaching COLAs to inflation to better assure workers do not fall behind again in the future.
Management made MAJOR moves on three proposals:
- Top Step – Management proposed an eleventh step added on 3/1/2027 that people would get on their benefit eligibility date. We want to be clear, this movement happened because workers fought hard for it. Management has clearly not wanted to add an additional step during this contract, and the souring economic forecast made this fight so much harder. This is a huge win for workers. Yesterday our team countered with an eleventh step added on 11/1/2026 that all topped out people would get on that date.
- Discrimination – For months management has been trying to remove discrimination protections from the contract. Yesterday, we received a package back from the State that includes many of the proposals that impact equity, and the State made big movement. They said that they heard us when we said changes to the equity protections in the contract are unacceptable, and in the package, withdrew most of their proposed changes to the articles of the contract that impact equity and discrimination (Articles 22, 22T, 101, 101T). They are also proposing to move the equity steward language into our Union Rights article where the majority of the steward language exists. We were happy to see this movement, and we know it only happened because WORKERS TOOK ACTION. Management moved because of the stories that you shared. They heard us loud and clear; we MUST have discrimination protections in our contract.
- Remote Work – We have started to dig into the issues that we hear from workers – mainly that decisions about remote work agreements are not consistent across agencies, much less across the state. In addition, we never win grievances at Step 3, which means we cannot hold agencies accountable for their decisions. Yesterday, we were finally able to make some progress with management (who, thus far, has refused to make any changes to Article 138). In the back and forth we had yesterday, they agreed to take the decision making at Step 3 out of the hands of management alone and put it into the hands of a joint labor management panel. They also agreed to include language that talks about partial rescissions of remote work alongside full recissions. This article has not been TA’d as of now, but this was big progress that we think will have a substantial impact on our ability to hold management accountable on remote work issues.
We also continued to negotiate over other important concepts where we saw less movement:
- Health Insurance – They continue to propose using the same language that we currently have in our contract establishing premium shares. We did have a conversation with them that included a PEBB board member to explain our concerns with the current language. We hope that we will see movement in a future proposal from them.
- Inclement Weather – This proposal is packaged with Remote work; we are still having conversations about this article but were able to get the state to agree that workers should be able to find the criteria that are being used to determine closures.
- Wage Parity and Vacation – We continue to propose that workers should have the same pay as management service employees when they are in the same classification. The state has still not responded to this proposal, which is extremely disappointing. We are also proposing that represented workers should have the same vacation accrual rate as management services. The state continues to refuse to agree to this proposal, but we have not moved off of it.
Payroll
The State also passed us a counter on payroll on Tuesday. It was disappointing and completely missed the mark. They continue to connect payroll with economics in their payroll proposals. In short, they are telling us that they refuse to settle without payroll changes. Their most recent proposal included a specific timeline but did not include enough money to ensure that workers will not experience economic insecurity during the transition. They included forty hours of additional vacation leave that could be cashed out immediately to help with the payroll transition, which is not enough to cover the transition period but is better than their initial proposal of a one-time $500 payment. We had a long sidebar discussion with them about what we need from them to consider making this transition and will see what their response is when we meet again next week.
State workers also received notice of the Workday transition class action lawsuit settlement. We shared a similar update with all members in March so hopefully this was not new to anyone. This notice is a required step to finalize the $15 million dollar lawsuit settlement around the Workday payroll transition. Please note, this settlement is not finalized as it is contingent on labor organization agreements regarding Workday-related grievances. We must reach a settlement during bargaining for this lawsuit settlement to move forward.
7/11
On Thursday, thousands of workers and supporters at more than 60 state worksites across Oregon came together and took action to show management we are serious about winning a fair contract. Rest assured, we’re not going to stop until we get a good deal. Elected union leaders and organizers are working on next steps in our escalation and we’re going to continue needing all our member power to win this! Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks.
In Salem, nearly 200 state workers marched at the Capitol demanding dignity and respect, as well as calling for solidarity for Oregon Department of Transportation workers, who are facing massive departmental layoffs. Our Oregon Strong, Union Strong day of action was an awesome display of worker power! Check out this video of the action.
We know it takes these kinds of actions to get management to move! When we fight, we win!
While we picketed around the state, the bargaining team met with management for a full day session. There was some movement on a few topics, and the team remained steadfast on our most important priorities. See more details below:
Economics – We responded to management’s economic proposal by telling them their proposal was not good enough. We clearly stated that it is unacceptable to hold key economic provisions—such as cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), step increases, and healthcare—hostage by making them contingent on our agreement to a biweekly pay schedule. We urged them to stop treating our livelihoods as bargaining chips.
We also focused on the lack of a top step in their current economic package. We have heard from members that adding a top step is a key priority this bargaining cycle and with our economic pass we are trying to be clear what it will take to settle this contract.
We also passed an updated economic proposal so management understands our priorities:
- We moved on our COLA proposal, bringing it to CPI + 2.5% retroactive to July 1, 2025 and CPI + 3% on July 1, 2026. This included a minimum COLA of no less than 3% and 4% each year.
- We also proposed adding one new top step, down from our previous proposal of two new top steps. This would include immediate implementation for topped out workers, meaning they would get a raise as soon as the contract is ratified.
- We updated our healthcare proposal but made sure that we protect workers’ access to a 1% premium plan as healthcare costs continue to rise. We continue to highlight to management that without action, 1% premium shares are threatened by higher carrier costs.
Management passed us two package proposals, both of which have been under discussion for some time. They agreed to remove contracting out language from the proposal so we can bargain it separately from other issues we are trying to resolve. We’ve made it clear we reject the current contract language and need to address the growing trend of hiring contractors to replace laid-off workers. Our proposal limits management’s ability to do so.
After bargaining, we met briefly with DAS to raise concerns about the ODOT layoff process—specifically the rushed timeline, lack of worker communication, oversized geographic regions, and contract language not designed for layoffs of this scale. We’re awaiting their response.
We remain committed to securing a contract that reflects the challenges we face. Next week we will be bargaining on Tuesday and Wednesday. We will have a link and times ready for everyone that is able to join on Monday. We also are not done with this fight! We held a great rally and info pickets across the entire state, now it's time to keep the pressure on! We will have updates next week on what our next action will be!
7/3
Yesterday, we finally received an economic counter from management. They passed us an economic package that included no new steps and a small increase to their COLA proposal. They are now proposing 2.65% on December 1, 2025 and 3% on December 1, 2026. They also have continued to propose all economics (healthcare, steps and COLAs) packaged with their payroll changes (biweekly pay, hourly pay and eliminating forecasting). This means their proposed pay increases are contingent on us accepting their payroll proposal.
We understood coming into this session that the economic outlook of the state budget makes this conversation difficult, but we are extremely disappointed with this proposal and management’s unwillingness to move on adding a new top step. This is going to be a fight. We have to turn the pressure up on them. The Oregon Strong, Union Strong Information Pickets on July 10th are more important than ever. For us to move management on a new top step and other priorities like increased layoff protections and maintaining discrimination protections in the workplace we must show up in force at worksite info pickets on Thursday.
RSVP here to let us know which picket you are joining!
We also passed management three other package proposals.
Part of the economic proposal from the State included responses to both our selective salary proposals and our differential proposals. Two out of the six groups that did selective salary presentations were included in their proposal. We will be reaching out to the groups that participated to share feedback from the State on their presentations. We received a no on the majority of the differentials and will be spending some time discussing them as a team next week. However, the State did agree to increase the essential worker differential from $3.00 to $4.00 an hour. They also proposed a path to adding the bilingual and multilingual differential to someone’s pay based on time worked rather than having it be a permanent part of your position description.
Our team passed the State three packages. The first package contained a number of proposals around leave time:
- Article 58 – Holidays - The State has been clear with us each time that we discussed this package that they would not be adding new leave time to our contract in this round of negotiations. We spent some time engaging with caucus leadership to discuss our proposal on adding Indigenous People’s Day. We also went back to our bargaining surveys, which ranked an additional holiday as our lowest economic priority. At the federal level, the day after Thanksgiving has been named Native American Heritage Day. In our proposal we agreed to let go of Indigenous People’s Day, but asked that the day after Thanksgiving be named Native American Heritage Day. Our team wanted to prioritize Indigenous workers, and this is one step forward, but there is more work to do in the future.
- Article 61 – Leaves of Absence without Pay - The other proposal we passed in this package was around leaves of absence without pay and trying to make using LWOP more accessible.
- Vacation was initially included in this package, but we have since removed it.
The second package we passed contained several proposals that are important to our members:
- Article 138 – Working Remotely – We have heard from members about their frustrations with their inability to make any meaningful challenges to remote work decisions. The proposal we passed still includes being able to arbitrate grievances on remote work.
- Article 71 – Seasonal and Intermittent Employees – We agreed to a proposal from management to create a committee that will have representation from every agency that employs seasonal employees. This committee will review both the current contract language and practices at agencies in order to recommend changes for the next bargaining team. While we were hoping to make changes to this article in this round of bargaining, the committee is a big step. Figuring out better language for seasonals is a priority for both teams.
- NEW LOA – Workload – We are continuing to push the idea that we should have workload models for all classifications so that people can understand what their workload should look like and when it is too high.
- Article 123 – Inclement and Hazardous Conditions – Our proposal on inclement weather ensures that people who can use this leave have access to it when they need it without arbitrary limits. It also includes language that more clearly defines who essential workers are.
The final package that we passed contained proposals that focus on emergent issues for our members:
- Article 13 – Contracting Out – We continue to push the idea that if the State has people on their layoff list, they need to hire them back from that list if they are qualified for the work rather than contracting out.
- New LOA Employee Monitoring – In this package, we agreed to management’s proposal that they will notify the union and the sublocal president prior to implementing or modifying any employee monitoring, surveillance, or data collection technology.
Our next bargaining session will be on Thursday. We will be meeting with management as workers all over the state are picketing. We will make sure to share observation links with everyone as we get closer to that date with information on when you can observe bargaining after your picket!
On June 30, the Collective Bargaining Agreement formally expired. Today we agreed to extend the CBA through the last scheduled bargaining session. So, the new expiration date of the CBA is July 23rd.
6/27
The Central Table team met with management Thursday, June 26, joined by more than 100 State workers to tell management we will not agree to remove discrimination protections from our contract. Many State workers shared their experiences with discrimination, emphasizing that a policy alone was not sufficient protection. We let management know we are extremely disappointed they even made this proposal.
We need your help to fight back. Join us at one of our “Oregon Strong, Union Strong” info pickets on July 10th to let management know we want a fair contract that includes respect, COLAs and protection from discrimination on the job.
We then passed them a package that contained our proposals around discrimination. This included:
- Articles 22 and 22T – No Discrimination – Our position on these articles remains unchanged from our initial proposals – we believe that discrimination grievances should be arbitrable and we believe that when someone is experiencing discrimination they should not be asked to continue working in the same space as the person who is discriminating against them.
- Articles 101 and 101T – Safety and Health – After hearing management’s proposal on how they conduct complaint investigations, we did adjust our proposal in this article to reflect what we learned – when they receive a complaint they investigate the behavior and then decide which policy best covers the behaviors they have discovered. We again maintained our language from our initial proposal that requires the State to take action in order to protect the worker from experiencing further harm while the investigation takes place.
- NEW Article: Dignity Clause – We updated our Dignity Clause proposal based on feedback we got from the State. We included the definition of harassment that is included in State policy, which talks about both protected classes and non-protected classes. We also expanded the Dignity Clause to all employees but highlighted that supervisors and managers should be held to a higher standard.
- LOA: Equity and Non-Discrimination Initiative – We included our initial proposal for this LOA in this package, which maintains both the stewards and the committee, with additional information being given to the committee.
- New LOA: Immigration Status – We included our initial proposal on immigration status, which provides paid leave for people to attend to their immigration status if needed.
- New LOA: ERGs – We included our initial proposal that creates a pathway for workers in all agencies to create an ERG (Employee Resource Group) and have standardized practices across the State.
The State gave us two packages yesterday. The team has not had a chance to review these packages yet as we were working on another set of proposals that we will give to the State next week. One of them is a package that has been passed back and forth a couple of times that contains Contracting Out, ADA Accommodations, and our new LOA on Employee Monitoring. The second package is a new one that contains responses to our proposals on Layoff language, the Salary and Benefit report, the State Worker Training Fund, Workplace Designations, the Finalization Process, and Quarterly Check-ins.
6/20
Bargaining this week opened with executive director Melissa Unger making a powerful statement about management’s biweekly pay proposal. She emphasized that workers have arranged their lives around the current pay schedule and are also wary of more changes after the issues caused by the Workday payroll transition. Over the last few bargaining cycles management has consistently proposed payroll changes, including biweekly pay. We let them know that if they are serious about implementing these changes, they need to address workers’ concerns. We refuse to be harmed by another fumbled payroll transition.
We then passed our counter to their payroll proposal. Our proposal incorporates management’s proposal and addresses concerns that we have heard from members over the last few months. Here is what is included in our proposal:
- A joint labor-management steering committee will be created to evaluate Workday’s suitability as the payroll program (and request a new payroll system RFP if the program is deemed unsuited), select a third-party auditor that will evaluate the Workday payroll transition and what went wrong, improve employee training on the payroll program, review and suggest improvements for payroll time entry and paystubs, and more.
- Establishes that time entry is the employer’s responsibility and assures payment even if time is not entered, establishes that overpayments not caused by the worker will not be recouped. and increases training requirements for management on time approval.
- Creates a payroll assistance team that is available by phone to answer questions about business rules and system functionality for payroll that will respond to calls within 24 hours.
- Gives all employees 24 hours of paid time to attend financial counseling provided at no cost to the employee and 16 hours of additional personal business leave that will be available to on January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2027 to attend to personal finances.
- Employees will have the ability to cash out sick leave between January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2027 to assist in any financial needs during this period.
- If an employee experiences tax issues due to the payroll transition, the state shall provide tax support at no cost to the employee.
- The transition would occur in June of 2027
- Employees will be paid for a partial month (June 1, 2027 – June 18, 2027) on July 1, 2027.
- In addition to their partial month pay, employees will also receive a check on July 1, 2027 that is the equivalent of one-hundred and twenty (120) hours of pay for that employee.
- The first biweekly pay period will be from June 19, 2027 to July 2, 2027 and will be paid on July 16, 2027
- Employees will receive a two-thousand dollar ($2000) one-time payment on July 16, 2027.
- The State develops a rapid payroll error response system during the transition. Employees who receive underpayments during this period will have their underpayment rectified immediately.
- The state will choose a test group of non-SEIU-represented employees to run a transition pilot. This pilot will be completed at least three months prior to the transition. The state will share the results of this pilot with the steering committee for review.
Management also passed a package proposal containing the following proposals among others:
- Article 139 – Working Remotely: The State wants to maintain current contract language on remote work, citing that agencies should have flexibility to determine when people work remotely and when they don’t. They have not yet responded to our proposal regarding workplace determinations for remote workers.
- Article 71 – Seasonal and Intermittent Employees: The State rejected our proposal regarding seasonal workers that would provide more stability for these workers. They proposed establishing a committee to review the language in the contract and development recommendations for the next bargaining teams.
- Article 123 – Inclement or Hazardous Conditions: We made some progress on inclement and hazardous conditions language. The State agreed that if a nonessential worker is required to work on a closure day, they will receive essential worker pay. They are still pushing to decrease their notice requirements for closures, moving away from the 5am deadline. They are also refusing to increase leave banks, leaving workers behind like those at the Clackamas County DMV who ran out last winter due to closures.
- New LOA – Workload Model: The State wants us to withdraw our workload LOA. They think a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work for all agencies and that creating one for every individual position would be too time-consuming.
- New LOA – 32 Hour Workweek: They said the union should withdraw our LOA on a 32-hour work week and said legislative changes would be needed to implement this.
We are working on a response to this package.
6/13
This week in bargaining we made movement on some key issues. The first was our economic proposal. We determined now is the right time to move because we are getting more clarity on what is happening federally, and the May revenue forecast came in. It is lower than anticipated and gives a negative outlook for Oregon, suggesting there could be a recession. The team decided to tie the COLA in the first year to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in this proposal to better reflect what we heard on the bargaining survey. Our proposal to management yesterday was:
- CPI plus 3% on July 1, 2025, but not less than 4% (with the current CPI, this would result in a COLA of about 5.3%)
- CPI plus 4% on July 1, 2026, but not less than 4% (with current CPI, this would result in a COLA of about 6.3%)
We also made movement on our health insurance proposal:
- We moved to status quo on premium share (1% premium share on the lower cost plans and 5% on the higher cost plans). However, we restructured how we talk about those plans in the contract to better reflect the bigger increases we’ve been seeing over the last few years.
- We moved off of our proposal that asked the State to guarantee gender-affirming care. The State flagged to us that this is not something we can bargain over because we are prohibited from bargaining over plan design. Our legal staff agreed with that assessment. Currently there are protections for this care under Oregon State law and our union is committed to protecting that law.
We also passed one package to management yesterday and they passed one package to us.
Our package:
- Article 13 – Contracting Out – We passed back our original proposal that would require the state to hire people back from the layoff list if they are qualified to do work that would be contracted out.
- LOA (Letter of Agreement) on ADA – We reiterated our concerns about the non-specific responses we get in the denials of ADA requests.
- New LOA on Employee Monitoring – We made some changes to our proposal to reflect feedback we heard from the State, but we continued pushing to protect employees from unjust discipline.
- Criminal Background Checks- We agreed to current contract language on criminal background checks after hearing from the State about how hard it is to write language that would work for every agency. We did share with the State that we would like them to have a higher level of transparency when it comes to what will be looked at in the background check so that people can navigate the process better.
Management’s package for us focused on the articles that address leave. Last week we gave management a response to this package, which includes bereavement leave, holidays, leaves without pay, and vacation, among others. This week they gave us a counter.
- Article 66 – Vacation Leave. They removed vacation from this package so that we can have conversations about it separately.
- They included a new LOA on hardship leave that would make it more accessible to people.
- On all other pieces of this package, they did not make any movement.
We have worked with the State to temporarily pause mediation so that we can have people observe our bargaining sessions. We had observers join us this week as we met virtually. Look for an invitation to observe our session next week!
6/6
As we communicated in our last update, we filed for mediation in May. We expected to continue open bargaining during these sessions, but were informed in the morning on Wednesday by our mediator that they do not allow this practice during mediation. Our team was surprised by this and is discussing how best to proceed with that information.
During our session on Thursday morning, we exchanged two packages with management. Our union team gave management a counter proposal on a package that contained a number of proposals related to types of leave. A few highlights from the package are
- Article 55 – Personal Leave Days: We modified our proposal focus solely winning eight additional hours of personal business leave for workers that work fully in person.
- Article 66 – Vacation Leave: We continue to propose that we should accrue vacation at the same rate as management.
- Article 58 – Holidays: We moved off of our proposal to create two new holidays – Transgender Day of Visibility and Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The team believes that there is no path to two new holiday and so removed Transgender Day of Visibility from our proposal to focus on Indigenous People’s Day, which we have been in conversation with management about for a couple of contract cycles now.
- Article 61 – Leaves of Absence without Pay: We continue to propose that being in leave without pay status not impact your leave accruals (sick leave, vacation leave) until you have been in leave without pay status for thirty days in a calendar year.
Management passed a package to our team that included “nos” to a number of our proposals including:
- Article 132 – Background Checks: where we proposed to make the process more transparent and to add protections for people going through the process.
- Article 13 – Contracting Out: where we proposed language to ensure that employees cannot be laid off and then replaced by contractors.
- New LOA – Employee Monitoring: where we proposed that the employer not be able to use the tools they have for managing property (fleet cars, phones) as part of the disciplinary process for employees.
5/23
This week, we reached a tentative agreement on a package of proposals that included some wins for union rights. We also fought off a bad proposal on required reporting for policy violations on the Contract Specialist program.
One of the most concerning proposals from management during this round of negotiations is their proposal to remove all discrimination protections from the contract. Our team asked management to speak to this proposal to better explain their intent. Management gave a presentation on the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) internal investigation unit and their investigation process. The presentation only reinforced what we already knew: workers need discrimination protections in their collective bargaining agreement!
Management’s process lacks transparency, accountability and trauma-informed practices. Management’s attempt to cut discrimination protections from the contract is unacceptable.
More details on this week’s session are on our website – click here to get up to speed.
The rest of negotiations this week focused on two package proposals
We continued to negotiate on the package management proposed two weeks ago and ultimately reached a tentative agreement on this package. Included in this package:
- Two new seats added to the central table bargaining team to increase member involvement in bargaining
- Paid prep time for Labor Management Committee (LMC) prep meetings
- Rejected management’s proposal requiring the union to tattle on Contract Specialists on state policy violation.
- The Union withdrew its proposal on truncated names recognizing that this work might be better done at individual agency LMCs.
- We also agreed to remove the AI proposal from the package so that it could be negotiated separately.
We’re currently reviewing management’s second package, which includes a proposal to allow workers to talk with recruiters on paid time. The rest focuses on leave proposals, and we’ll have more to report after the next bargaining session.
5/9
We received a package proposal from the State that included our Contract Specialist LOA, our Negotiations Procedures article, and our Labor-Management Committee article among others. The team will be working through their package proposal as, like most package proposals, it contains some things that we like (increasing the size of our central table bargaining team from ten to twelve) and some things that we don’t like a no on our name truncation proposal.
Over the last week our bargaining team has traveled around the state to give updates and have discussions with members about bargaining. The team visited nearly 100 worksites and had conversations with hundreds of workers about what their priorities were and what they hope to see in a new contract.
During the roadshow, the team heard that COLAs, health care and new Steps continue to be high priorities. Currently management has nothing on the table regarding a new top step and we heard loud and clear that we need a new top step that recognizes the years many state workers have put in—in order to win this, we are going to have to ramp up pressure on the state.
We also heard that folks are watching the unknowns in the budget and federal cuts closely, worried about their own jobs and their co-workers, which is why we think working on our layoff language is so important.
We also heard lots of feedback about management’s payroll proposal, and we know management’s current proposal is not acceptable to members. It's clear that if we are going to engage in a conversation about payroll, the state will need to commit to:
- No cut in our pay
- Workers can pay their bills
- Keeping our pay whole during any transition -- $500 is not nearly enough
- No cuts in hours
- Deductions spread out evenly on our paychecks
- Support to transition our bills to a new schedule
- Payroll system that doesn’t make mistakes
- Penalty pay when things go wrong
- Overtime to needs be taxed in a more standard way
Management continues to slowly build their payroll proposal, while we are asking question, we don’t believe they will create a proposal that works for us. But we want to see if we can build a system that will fix long-standing payroll problems and build in more protections for any future errors. That is why we will continue to engage members to identify our vision for a payroll system that works for frontline workers. Please keep your eyes open for future opportunities to participate in those discussions.
This week, we bargained with management for most of the day on Thursday. We were able to reach tentative agreements on three different articles. For two of the articles (Article 1 – Parties to the Agreement and Article 2 – Recognition) the changes were minor changes to update the names of some of the agencies. Our third tentative agreement was on Article 64 – Pre-Retirement Counseling Leave – again, we did not make major changes, but updated the language to include OPSRP and bring it into alignment with current practices.
4/25
This week in bargaining, we reached our first two tentative agreements (TA)! We were able to agree on a proposal that would allow SEIU-represented temporary employees to be considered as internal candidates when applying for positions with any State agency. And management agreed to a proposal that we passed to form a subcommittee with two representatives from each bargaining team to revamp the grievance form and bring it into the 21st century!
We started a conversation between the teams about personnel files to try to get a clear understanding of what a personnel file is within Workday and who has access to it. This is a conversation that we will be continuing in our upcoming bargaining sessions.
Thirteen different SEIU-represented classifications gave presentations to the bargaining teams this week to increase the salary range at which their classification is paid. Representatives from these classifications joined training sessions earlier this year to learn how to most effectively give these presentations. A lot of work goes into them, and we expect to get responses from the State’s team in a few weeks after they have had a chance to review the information.
Next week, we, the bargaining team, are hitting the road to travel around the state to visit dozens of worksites to update members about the bargaining campaign. We will be visiting nearly 100 worksites in every corner of the state between May 1st and May 7th. Though we would love to visit every worksite, we just won’t be able to make that happen. So, we are scheduling some regional off-site meetings so everyone can get updates even if we cannot go to your site. Please register for one of the offsite meetings below and join us if you can:
- Virtual Bargaining Team Roadshow Meeting- Saturday 5/3 at 10am
- Portland Bargaining Team Roadshow Meeting - Thursday, 5/1, at 6:00pm
- Medford Bargaining Team Roadshow Meeting - Saturday, 5/3, at 1:00pm
- McMinnville Bargaining Team Roadshow Meeting - Sunday, 5/4, at 5:00pm
- Eugene Bargaining Team Roadshow Meeting - Sunday, 5/4, at 2:00pm
- Pendleton Bargaining Team Roadshow Meeting - Monday, 5/5, at 6:30pm
We have gathered nearly 10,000 petition signatures so far during this campaign. These signatures have a huge impact because it shows us that you have our back on the important proposals that we have passed like COLAs, Healthcare and Workload and Safety. The petition closes on May 2nd, so you are running out of time to sign if you have not. Please click on this link, read the petition and add your name. Show management we are united and ready to fight!
We also are getting ready for our next action. On Thursday, June 5th we are holding a rally at the Oregon Capitol from 12:00pm - 2:00pm to fight for a state budget that reflects Oregon's values and allows us to get the money needed to pay for a fair contract. Oregonians depend on state services to make ends meet, to care for and educate children, to maintain affordable and quality healthcare and so much more. State workers provide those services and need a fair contract to continue to do that work! Register here today.
Last week we highlighted the proposed rate increases that health insurance carriers (Providence, Kaiser, and Moda) have proposed to the Public Employee Benefits Board. These increases would result in cuts to benefits that will harm employees and their families. We are pushing back and telling these companies to not price gouge at the expense of our benefits. Hundreds of workers have taken action and emailed the decision makers at Providence, Moda, and Kaiser to encourage them to reduce their proposed increases. Click here to join and tell these companies to back off!
4/11
We met with management on Wednesday, 4/9, which was the last day for each side to pass initial proposals. Now that all the proposals are out on the table, the stakes are clear. While our union bargaining team is fighting for members’ priorities including cost-of-living increases, reasonable workloads, employee safety, layoff protections and more, management is proposing serious takeaways, including removing non-discrimination protections from our union contract.
Non-discrimination
While we passed a series of proposals to increase support for our coworkers who are facing discrimination, management took the opposite tack and proposed reducing state workers’ access to union representation when they are discriminated against.
Management’s proposal included crossing out all of the language in our non-discrimination article (Article 22) and replacing it with a vague reference to employer policy. In addition, management’s proposal completely removes all rights for workers to choose union representation when dealing with discrimination. They also proposed removing all of the additional protections we bargained in our last contract for workers experiencing discrimination and harassment at work.
In contrast, our proposals included adding teeth to the non-discrimination language in our contract by making it so a neutral, third-party arbitrator could enforce it. We also proposed additional protections for workers who file non-discrimination grievances or workplace professionalism complaints.
It's clear that we are very far apart on this issue. 44% of workers who participated in our bargaining survey said they have experienced harm in the workplace because of their identity. We find it extremely concerning that the state is proposing to take away protections from those workers and to remove our Union’s ability to support them.
Workload Protections
We proposed these concepts on workload:
- A new Letter of Agreement that creates a standard process and timeline to create Workload Models for all classifications in all agencies that includes input from Labor Management Committees.
- Article 86 – Workload Prioritization: Increases specificity on how management responds and supports someone who makes a prioritization request.
- Article 34 – Standby Duty & On-Call Duty: Updates compensation for on-call pay to 1 hour of pay for each 3 hours of on-call.
- 32-hour work week: We proposed that the State develop a pilot program for a 32-hour work week with no reduction in compensation.
Employee Safety
We proposed these concepts on safety:
- Article 133 – Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Stalking or Human Trafficking Victim Leave: Removes requirement for exhaustion of all forms of paid leave prior to use. Records under this article are confidential. Notice provided to victims if perpetrator is returned to work.
- We also proposed two new letters of agreement to protect people’s identity. One would ensure that people do not need to use their full names unless legally necessary for State business. The other would prevent the State from sharing worker’s pronouns in information requests from outside the state.
Economic Justice
In addition to the COLA and healthcare proposals we gave management in an earlier session, we also passed the following economic pieces:
- Differentials: We passed many changes including an increase to the shift differential and a change to the Essential Worker differential that would allow non-essential workers to receive it if they are required to work on an inclement weather/hazardous conditions leave day.
- Housing: This new letter of agreement creates a fund that loans money to workers to pay the upfront money required to rent a new apartment/house (like first and last month’s rent and a security deposit) or to help buy down the interest on a mortgage.
- Seasonal Workers: Our proposal makes several changes to the seasonal article to make the transition from season to season easier for workers and to give workers more access to fill gaps in seasonal positions.
Other changes
Management also proposed these changes yesterday:
- Article 21 – Grievance and Arbitration Procedure: Management proposed revamping this article for clarity. In addition, they made changes to some of their response timelines and added that all grievances must have a steward separate from the grievant at all steps.
- Article 57 – Bereavement: Brings bereavement leave in line with OFLA - must use accrued leave, then Leave Without Pay.
- Article 123 – Inclement or Hazardous Conditions: Changes requirement for closure notices before 5am to as soon as closure or curtailment decisions are made. Clarifies process for closure of office following the beginning of an employee’s shift.
We are hitting the road from May 1st to May 7th to meet with workers all across the state. Join one of our events to learn more about what is happening at the bargaining table and to share your priorities.
3/21
Both teams passed their economic packages today. Below you can see what each team proposed on some of the key issues:
| Proposal | Our Proposals | Management’s Proposals |
| Cost of Living Increases | July 1, 2025 – 8%
July 1, 2026 – CPI-W +5%, but no less than 5% | December 1, 2025 – 2.3%
December 1, 2026 – 3% |
| Steps | Steps locked in for the CBA. 2 new steps (removing bottom 2 steps where they are not truncated).
Accelerated timeline for longterm employees to move to new steps. | Steps locked in. Status quo on everything else |
| Health Insurance | Highest cost plan will have a 95%/5% premium share. All other plans would be paid at 100% by the State. Protect gender-affirming care in our health insurance. | Status Quo |
| Holidays | Add Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Transgender Day of Visibility | No new holidays |
| Vacation | Increase vacation leave to have parity with management.
Allow people carrying high levels of vacation an ability to cash out more frequently | Status Quo |
| Personal Leave Days | Increase everybody’s personal leave by 8 hours for a total (32 hours). People who work fully in-person would get an additional 8 hours on top of that (40). | Status Quo |
Payroll Process:
The state proposed changes to pay schedules that they believe will resolve ongoing issues with the Workday payroll system. Specifically, management proposed:
- Timesheets would be submitted for hours already worked, not hours we expect to work in the future (eliminating forecasting hours).
- Overtime-eligible workers would be paid an hourly wage rather than a monthly salary.
- The State will transition from paying monthly (12 pay periods per year) to paying bi-weekly (26 pay periods per year). Being paid, every other week rather than the first of the month.
They also proposed a $500 one-time payment to address the gap in pay that would be created when transitioning to paying for hours already worked.
They shared a memo with our bargaining team that outlines why they believe these changes will address issues with the payroll system. Management was also clear that this is their top priority in bargaining. Though they provided this memo, they have not proposed details on how they would like to calculate hourly wages or what the lag period would be if forecasting is eliminated.
We know that the current payroll system does not work well for everyone, especially lower income workers and people dealing with chronic medical conditions. That is why we have proposed penalty pay for workers whose paychecks are short or missing and that all workers have a right to a repayment plan if they are overpaid by the state, no matter why the overpayment happened.
Our payroll system needs to ensure that people living paycheck-to-paycheck have the money to pay their bills. The current system does not do this. Protecting everyone’s pay and making sure all state workers, but especially those of us who are low paid, are able make ends meet are our top priorities in negotiations on this issue.
What is next? Our plan is to create space over the next few months to hear from you about this proposal, and to have a broad conversation within our union about what our vision a functional, worker-centered payroll system should look like. Please be on the lookout for more info soon about how you can be part of that conversation.
3/12
Our team passed proposals from our 21st Century Workplace section of our platform. This included these concepts:
- Increasing protections for remote work agreements, improvements in the Union’s ability to protect remote work access, and more specific steps management must take when rescinding agreements.
- Improvements to the Inclement and Hazardous Conditions article.
- Implementing protections for workers for implementation of Artificial Intelligence in the workplace.
- Improvements to layoff protections.
- Penalty payments for payroll errors and access to payment plans for all overpayments.
- Clarity around workplace designation for remote workers.
Management still has not shared their proposals on economics or payroll changes involving Workday, though we expect those proposals in our next meeting. Management passed proposals integrating equal pay processes throughout all the position transitions an employee might make during their employment at the State. Our bargaining team is still in the process of reviewing these proposals.
We will meet with management at the Central Table again on March 20th and it’s going to be a big day. It is the last day that either side can pass an initial proposal! Both sides will be passing their economics and changes regarding the Workday system.
2/28
Bargaining is officially under way! Yesterday, we held our first full bargaining session with management, marking the start of exchanging proposals. Over a hundred members joined us on zoom, sending management a strong message—State workers are engaged and ready to fight for a fair contract.
In our opening statement, we laid out our union’s top priorities: Economic Justice, 21st Century Workplaces, Workload & Safety, and Union Power. You can check out our opening statement slide deck for more details.
While they didn’t actually offer proposals, management told us in their opening statement that they will be making proposals to change payroll processes. Specifically, they said they want to shift overtime eligible employees to hourly pay, move our pay periods to biweekly, and eliminate forecasting in timesheets. We don’t have specifics on the details of these proposals yet, but we will share more information with you once we do.
In addition to making our opening statement, our team also passed the proposals in our Union Power category, including:
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- Strengthening our union by giving newly hired in-person workers the opportunity to meet with their union reps in-person during their new employee orientations
- Ending the state’s anti-union practice of giving management service employees higher pay than people in our bargaining unit who do the same work
- Improving the timelines in our grievance process to make it easier for stewards to enforce our contract
Our next bargaining sessions will be Wednesday, March 12th and Thursday, March 13th. Our negotiations are open for members of our union to observe, so be on the lookout for invitations!
2/6
State Bargaining is getting into full swing and while no proposals have been passed yet, we still have a lot to report! Firstly, thank you so much to the almost 8500 members that completed the bargaining survey. This was over 2000 more participants than in 2022 and we’re excited about that level of engagement. The elected bargaining team is reviewing the survey now to strategize the best way forward and we should have more information about our priorities after the bargaining conference next month. The team has also already met to elect their leading co-chairs. Congratulations to Angela Ward from ODFW and Joe Dyer from OHA – Pendleton Cottage. We know you have what it takes to lead our state workers to victory!
We know how important it is for state workers to win a fair contract and get wage increases that keep up with all the inflation and price gouging by greedy corporations over the past several years. Governor Tina Kotek needs to know that as well and that is why we have crafted an online action you can take to let her know she needs to support state workers during this difficult time by approving a fair budget and contract. Send a letter today!
1/29
Friday (1/31) is payday and it’s going to be a big one! Starting January 1st, you received a 6.55% COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment). This pay increase is a result of the hard work and determination of State workers during the 2023 bargaining campaign. They refused to accept the 2% increase management proposed and organized to win their largest pay increase in more than 50 years.
That’s the power of being in union with your coworkers. It’s also why union workers, on average make about 14% more than non union workers make. We can’t take that for granted, we need to stay organized and engaged so we can continue to win for everyone.
- Our bargaining team met with the State for the first time in December to approve ground rules for this year's negotiations. We will start meeting to share proposals in early February.
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- Currently, our bargaining team is reviewing the thousands of bargaining surveys that Union members submitted. We collected 1,200 more surveys than last session, which tells us that State workers are ready to bargain!
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