Expanded Paid Leave Benefits Negotiated!

In January of this year, the PSU-AAUP bargaining team began negotiating with PSU Administration over the implementation of the Paid Leave Oregon(PLO) program. PLO is a program created by the Oregon State Legislature; it became law in 2019 and is scheduled to go into effect later this year. This new state program provides all employees who work in the State of Oregon additional paid time when they need to take medical or family leave. This allows employees to get that needed time off without having to use as many sick leave hours as they would have in the past.

The AAUP team has now completed negotiations with the Administration on two Memoranda of Agreement (MOA) that provide additional protections and benefits that go even further than what State’s PLO offers.

What’s New?
The first MOA would allow employees to choose to extend their protected leave to a total of 24 weeks. As it is now, employees are required to get approval from their unit or department head to extend their leave. Now, that extension is no longer left to the discretion of unit or department heads; it would be guaranteed in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The second MOA addresses salary replacement for days when employees are using family or medical leave. Under this new MOA, if you are on a  qualifying leave and use up your sick leave accruals, you would be able to access more leave time from the Donated Sick Leave Bank (DSLB) than has been available up until now. Previously, employees could draw no more than 40 days from the DSLB. Now, 60 days would be available. This means that most employees who take the full 24 weeks of family or medical leave would be able to supplement their PLO benefits with sick leave, so they do not lose income during that time away from work.

Click here to read all the details on how Paid Leave Oregon works and about the benefits negotiated.

Ballot on PLO Memoranda of Understanding opens on Friday, June 16
Because these new benefits constitute a change in the language of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, they must be ratified by PSU-AAUP members.

The ballot opens tomorrow (Friday, June 16) at 8AM. The ballot will close on Friday, June 30 at 5 PM. You will receive an email ballot from ElectionBuddy.  If you do not receive a ballot by end of day on June 16, contact the AAUP office at aaup@psuaaup.net.