The relationships between union organizations look something like this:

AFSCME – the union for American Federal State County and Municipal Employees (because apparently something like American Public Employees would be too succinct and easy to remember). AFSCME is one of the all-time biggest unions around, representing about 1.3 million people. The organization is divided regionally into 54 councils, and further into about 3400 local unions. We can fit under the AFSCME umbrella because OHSU is a public university. Other graduate employee unions are often a part of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), but they were not the best fit for our bargaining unit since many of our members don’t have a teaching component to their work.

AFSCME Council 75 – A subdivision of AFSCME representing the local unions in Oregon. Fun fact, Council 75 Executive Director Stacey Chamberlain is also on OHSU’s board of directors.

AFSCME Local 328 – An AFSCME local representing about 6500 OHSU employees. 328 is a well-established local, and the articles of their contract are one of the main sources we use as we draft our own contract language. Local 328 is approaching the end of their current contract, and just like us they are currently bargaining with OHSU Management to negotiate their next one. You can follow along with Local 328 bargaining by reading their Bargaining Blog.

Graduate Researchers United – You are here. GRU is an AFSCME local representing about 280 graduate researchers at OHSU in the School of Public Health, School of Nursing, and School of Medicine. We decided to form our own local rather than joining 328 because graduate researchers have a unique relationship with OHSU as both students and employees. We are in the process of writing and bargaining our first contract.

AFL-CIO – The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations is a Union Federation representing almost all of organized labor in the US. You can thank them for fighting to create US labor laws as we know them today.