A union is petitioning for the top executives at Oregon Health & Science University to decline bonuses.
Oregon AFSCME Council 75 is setting out to collect 3,200 signatures for its petition to the board and president of OHSU, the state's only academic health center. The union is demanding that OHSU's top executives decline bonuses allotted under the system's President's Recognition Awards, that the board redirect the bonus funds to OHSU employees, and for the board to "more seriously consider how decisions such as this might impact the wellbeing and morale of OHSU's employees in the future."
The President's Recognition Awards rewards a total of $12.5 million in bonuses to 2,000 of the system's 20,000 workers, according to the Portland Business Journal. The bonuses begin at $750 with the max at $183,000 for OHSU Health CEO John Hunter, MD, the highest-paid employee after OHSU President Danny Jacobs.
The bonuses will be the first that "higher levels" have received since 2019, an HR official told Portland Business Journal.
Mr. Jacobs told Portland Business Journal that the rates were determined by the market analysis conducted by an outside firm. Eight executive vice presidents are set to receive bonuses equal to 15.9% of their salaries, whereas the market analysis actually suggested 30%, according to a slide deck about the awards obtained by the local news outlet.
The union is targeting the bonuses for the top-paid executives at the system, noting that it tolerates the bonuses to lower-level employees.
"To be clear, we do not take issue with the modest bonuses going to chronically underpaid members of lower and middle management," the union said in its petition. "What we strongly oppose are the high dollar bonuses getting doled out to already well paid executives that account for the majority of the money being distributed."
The petition has earned support from the Oregon Nurses Association, which reached a tentative contract agreement with OHSU on Sept. 27. OHSU managers received notice on Sept. 25 of which employees would receive bonuses under the President's Recognition Awards, and most of the payouts will be made Oct. 13, according to the slide deck cited by Willamette Week.