State workers protest health care cost shifting

At more than 50 locations around Oregon, state workers picketed on their lunch hour April 13 to support a set of bills in the Legislature that would rein in health care costs.

How to pay for increases in health care costs has been the biggest source of disagreement in contract negotiations for the state’s largest bargaining unit. The 18,000-member Department of Administrative Services (DAS) unit, represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503, has been bargaining a new contract since December. DAS includes most state agencies; the current contract expires July 1.

Negotiators for the State of Oregon have proposed that the employer pay for health insurance premium increases up to 5 percent a year; employees would pay the portion of any increase above 5 percent.

That’s unacceptable, the union says. Workers already have co-pays of up to 15 percent, and they have given up wage increases in past contracts to preserve fully-paid premiums. Premiums have risen 10 percent or more in recent years, so management’s proposal would almost certainly force state employees to begin paying monthly premiums for the first time.

The two sides also disagree on raises: The state is proposing a 2-percent-a-year COLA (Cost Of Living Adjustment) while the union wants a 4 percent COLA the first year, to make up for the COLAs that were missed in the wage freeze of the last two years.

“The state needs to make decisions about priorities, about where they’re going to spend money,” said bargaining committee co-chair Greg Ledbetter. “We believe we’re entitled to fair pay for fair work.”

Because health costs are such a big issue in bargaining, SEIU leaders chose to focus the April 13 picketing on support for a set of five proposals that target the sources of cost increases. The proposals, contained in Oregon Senate Bills 501 through 505, require insurance companies to justify rate increases to a governor-appointed review board; regulate the rates hospitals charge; require approval before health care facilities undertake expensive new construction; require hospitals to make good on their charter as charitable institutions by providing free and low-cost care to the poor; and expand Oregon’s new prescription drug bulk purchasing pool.