We were disheartened and disappointed to discover that OHSU has allocated $12.5 million for leadership bonuses.This money should be put toward improvements for the hundreds of OHSU employees currently bargaining agreements with OHSU, including resident physicians and postdoctoral employees, and those who will be doing so shortly, such as the soon-to-be unionized research staff. These underpaid and vulnerable workers keep the hospital functioning, and they drive much of the cutting-edge research that OHSU publicly takes so much pride in.

In recent negotiations with our unions, OHSU insisted that to pay our members a living wage was impossible. Executives claimed that to give us wages that kept up with Portland’s spiraling cost of living and record inflation would endanger the financial health of the institution. We were told by high-priced lawyers that Portland is an “affordable city,” and that it was not reasonable for us to demand salaries as low as $40,000 a year.

To turn around and announce a multi-million dollar bonus package for OHSU’s highest-paid executives is not merely tone deaf in the face of well-documented employee morale issues, it is deeply unethical. Many workers at OHSU are struggling. Hundreds rely on food banks to survive. Resident physicians, the doctors who provide front-line care, work 16 straight hours or more, and then go drive for Uber to support their families. This decision is a slap in their collective faces and is wildly out of touch with the climate of discontent we encounter on campus. Budget decisions communicate priorities, and this communicates to us that we are low on OHSU’s priority list. It overlooks ongoing problems in patient care, many of which can be attributed to employee recruitment and retention issues tied to wages and working conditions. $12.5 million could create numerous new positions to support patient care, or make any number of other tangible improvements in the lives of workers that could improve retention.

We therefore demand that OHSU’s top executives decline these egregious bonuses. We demand that the board redirect these funds in a way that will improve the lives of hundreds of OHSU employees rather than increase the wealth of those most well-off. To be clear, we do not take issue with the modest bonuses going to chronically underpaid members of lower and middle management. 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.

We further request that the Board of Directors more seriously consider how decisions such as this might impact the wellbeing and morale of OHSU’s employees in the future.