Oregon Lawmakers Urge OHSU to Cut a Deal With Unionized Researchers

Leaders of the Oregon Senate and House of Representatives sent a letter to administrators at Oregon Health & Science University on July 30, urging them to sign a labor agreement with newly unionized postdoctoral researchers who have been pressing OHSU for nine months to raise wages.

Negotiations soured late last month, prompting 286 researchers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees to authorize a strike, if necessary. Talks continued Tuesday as the two sides sought to avoid a walkout.

OHSU says it pays the researchers according to standards set by the National Institutes of Health. The union says the starting NIH wage, $61,008 a year, doesn’t cover the cost of living in an expensive city like Portland. Universities in other pricey cities, including the University of Washington and the University of California system, pay their postdocs more than the NIH minimum, the union says.

Senate President Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego) and House Speaker Julie Fahey (D-Eugene) agree.

“While it’s true that OHSU is aligned with the National Institutes of Health’s compensation model, the cost of living in the Portland metro area means that those national levels of compensation aren’t adequate to attract and retain the researchers who are doing important work,” they wrote in their letter to OHSU board chairman Wayne Monfries, university president Danny Jacobs, and chief research officer Peter Barr-Gillespie.

Researchers with doctoral degrees, many of them from outside the U.S., provide a low-cost, high-talent labor pool to institutions like OHSU. AFSCME leaders say their postdoc members helped OHSU win a record amount of research grants last year.

A group of state senators and representatives sent their own letter, too, citing Jacobs’ $1.6 million salary and the extra $700,000 in retirement pay that OHSU recently awarded him.

“The reality is that in two weeks, Dr. Danny Jacobs earns roughly the same as a postdoc researcher earns in a year, but in spite of that shocking disparity, the board awarded him an additional $700,000 toward retirement,” the legislators wrote. “We cannot support such a glaring disparity of income and respect.”

Jacobs acknowledged the letters with one of his own, telling lawmakers that NIH will raise researchers’ salaries to $70,000 over four years and that OHSU would follow suit.

“It is a challenging time for academic health centers across the country as increases in expenses continue to outpace increases in revenue,” Jacobs wrote. “My objective is to reach a contract that is both fair for our valued workforce and sustainable for the long-term future of OHSU.”