The initial bargaining demands were the result of member input over the past year in a variety of forms — 1000s of conversations over the past three years, membership meetings, grievances, two equity surveys completed by nearly 2500 people, evaluation data from the EPIC program, the bargaining survey where nearly 2500 Academic Student Employees (ASEs) provided their input, and discussion of a draft of the demands at a January member strategy meeting. They were ratified by over 70% of ASE members in January. 

From there, additional membership discussions took place in membership meetings, info sessions, and 1-to-1 organizing conversations. Through topic-specific working groups, members developed a more specific set of demands we presented to administration at our first bargaining session on February 9. As negotiations have progressed, proposals are continually developed during union caucus meetings each day of bargaining, as well as through additional working group meetings. All members are welcome and encouraged to participate in any of these meetings! To join union caucuses, please fill out this RSVP form, and request to join Slack. With questions and concerns, please reach out to your department steward or email ase-bargaining@uaw4121.org.

There are a number of ways you can get more information about contract proposals on an ongoing basis. After each bargaining session, updated information will be available in the following formats: 

• Full bargaining session summaries: For summaries of each bargaining session, including proposals passed, discussion, and more, check out the archive of session summaries. These are also emailed to all members after every session. 
• Full text of all proposals: To read the full text of every proposal passed by us or by administration, check out the proposals tracking page.

If you have questions about the status of any topic, feel free to email ase-bargaining-team@uaw4121.org or post a message in the #questions channel of the Slack.

What we can win in bargaining is a direct function of how much collective power we can build together. All members are strongly encouraged to participate in every stage of our contract campaign. There are many ways to get involved — check out this page on our website for an ongoing list!

Huge participation is critical because the university pays close attention to our participation rates — in the bargaining survey, in the initial demands ratification, and throughout the campaign — to gauge our strength. When a strong majority of ASEs are involved, the university knows union members are willing to fight for improvements to the current contract, and we’re able to make bigger wins. On the flip side, if we have low overall participation, the university won’t take us seriously at the bargaining table. So the stakes are high, but we know we can win when members are unified and active!

Bargaining sessions mostly take place over Zoom, and are open to all members.all members are welcome! Once you fill out the RSVP form, you will receive an email a day before each session with the location information and the tentative outline of the day. It’s always great to have more union members in the virtual room, and it’s a great way to stay up to date with what’s going on. You don’t have to commit to a full day, and you don’t have to actively participate in conversations with admin. You can just come whenever you have a free hour, and you can just listen in if you want!

You can find a full schedule of bargaining sessions on this page and on our calendar. 

During bargaining sessions, we regularly go into union “caucus” meetings, where we leave the zoom with admin and talk separately as a union. This is a great way to get involved if you want to participate in conversations about bargaining strategy and help develop proposals and counterproposals during bargaining. In order to stay coordinated during sessions with admin, we meet in a union caucus at the beginning of each bargaining day to decide who will fill which roles, what we’ll present, and who will present.

To join bargaining sessions and caucuses, you’ll first need to join the Union Slack and RSVP for the sessions. Depending on the sessions you signed up for and the roles you expressed interest in, you will be added to the channel for those specific sessions (e.g. #2024-02-09 bargaining) and other appropriate channels. It should show up in the Channels pane on the left. In that session-specific channel, a pinned message will have the zoom link for union caucus (if we’re meeting on zoom), the zoom link for meeting with admin, notes for the day, and more.

If you’ve filled out the form, you should get an email with an invitation to join. If you haven’t gotten your invite within 24 hours, email slack-check@uaw4121.org.

Once you have the invite, if you’re having trouble joining the Slack from a web browser, try downloading the desktop app (Windows, Mac). If you still have trouble, email ase-bargaining-team@uaw4121.org and someone will follow up to help!

All of our rights and benefits we have today have come from activism and organizing of previous generations of student workers just like you. Your decision to become involved and support the contract campaign ensures we can continue to build a stronger university: not just for us as individuals but for our entire community. 

Bargaining only ends when the majority of members vote to approve the new contract. We keep going until you agree that we have a contract that meets our needs.

Our current contract expires on April 30, 2024 and we want a contract that meets our needs. Our ability to win this contract depends on each and every one of us getting informed and involved in every step of the bargaining process. Though every contract campaign is highly context-dependent, negotiations for similar successor agreements in our sector (higher ed) can take anywhere from a couple months to longer. 

On February 27th, we passed all of our initial proposals on all articles to Management. As of April 5th, we have yet to hear anything from UW Administration on some of these initial proposals, some of which were passed as early as our first bargaining session on February 9th. In order for us to reach agreement on our next contract, we need real, substantive proposals from Management now.

We hope to reach agreement on a strong contract before April 30th that is ratified by membership, in which case our next contract will take effect as soon as the current contract expires. If Management continues to stall at the table and not provide substantive proposals and we haven’t reached agreement on our next contract, there are a couple of different pathways for what could happen after April 30th. When bargaining extends past the end date of a contract, both parties can agree to extend the contract by a specified duration while continuing to bargain. If both parties do not agree to this, then the contract enters what is referred to as the “Evergreen Period.” This period, mandated by Washington state law, extends most terms of the contract for up to one year.

No – the decision to escalate to a strike is one that we will make collectively.