Hi Colleague,
Yesterday, nearly two months into bargaining, Management gave us their opening offer on healthcare – where they proposed cutting back our premium coverage to 85% from the full coverage in our current contract.
As a member of our ASE Bargaining Team that has been organizing around our demands on healthcare and a more accessible workplace, I’m eager to share some of my initial reactions.
My name is Candice, and I’m a Ph.D. candidate in the Molecular and Cellular Biology program researching the molecular details of early cancer detection. But since starting grad school in Fall 2020 and experiencing firsthand the drastic changes in academic and healthcare infrastructures throughout the pandemic, I’ve become increasingly passionate about improving structural conditions for my broader community—especially with policies concerning our health.
Healthcare is a human right. Admin’s attitude shows their callousness towards ASE health needs—and a fundamental opposition to getting people the care they need to do their jobs, let alone live as they deserve. They’ve shown complete disinterest in discussing vision, dental, physical therapy or any of the other things we need to keep our healthcare at top quality.
I fundamentally believe in our collective power. We can build a future where great healthcare is a given, not a luxury through our solidarity as academic workers. Together, through collective action, we will empower each other to advocate for the basic care we all deserve—regardless of financial concerns. Let’s continue this vital work together by coalescing at the ASE rally on the 29th at noon at the UW quad. With 1000+ of us showing up to support, we can extend our power in transforming our vision for comprehensive healthcare into reality.
With today’s initial proposals on Wages, Workload, and Healthcare, UW Admin sent a clear message: Management believes that ASEs should be paying more to work as ASEs.
After nearly two months at the bargaining table, UW Admin rounded out their initial proposals yesterday by putting forth language that:
- removes the maximum workload (220 hours) that an ASE can be expected to work per quarter
- has 3% annual wage increases (below the projected rate of inflation) over the life of the contract
- increases GAIP healthcare premiums from $0 to $1092 per year.
UW only works because we do — we teach the majority of student contact hours and power the research that makes UW a $9 billion institution. To continue building a UW that lives up to its mission, we need a strong contract that:
- guarantees wages that keeps up with the rising costs of living in Puget Sound
- includes meaningful support for non-citizen ASEs
- ends regressive pay-to-work fees ensures that we can continue to build a UW that lives up to its mission.
Summaries of UW Admin’s Proposals from 3/22
Article 35: Workload
Management proposed to strike the maximum of 220 hours that a salaried ASE can be expected to work over a given quarter. Instead, ASEs “should work with their supervisors to ensure that they work an average of 20 hours a week, before the workload limits are reached.”
This proposal removes a key contractual safeguard that ASEs use to address workload issues that are unfortunately too common in our industry. These often stem from the power imbalances between supervisors (faculty, PIs, etc.) and ASEs as well as structural inequities in academia more broadly.
It is already so easy to feel isolated as an underrepresented ASE in a majority white, cis discipline. Feeling alone and unheard without adequate support systems takes a toll on my mental and physical well-being and impacts my work. I worry about the additional burdens of having to negotiate my workload without an hours limit.
As countless responses from our Bargaining Survey and the Equity Survey show, equity is a serious issue that many ASEs are facing. UW Admin’s proposal on workload flagrantly shifts the burden of structural inequities in academia onto individual ASEs, particularly to those of us from underrepresented backgrounds.
“The current raise UW proposed won’t cover my rent increase for the rest of my program. It won’t even cover the ways ASEs are being asked to bear more costs next year. As a disabled ASE, my ability to access my workplace will be affected if I have to move or change my commute routine due to low wages and benefits. For many of us, wages are an equity issue—our ability to be at UW is dependent on affording the sorts of housing, care, and other things that enable us to work.”
Francesca Colonnese, English
Article 33: Wages
After more than a month of eager anticipation since we passed our initial Wages proposal, UW Admin gave their initial proposal on wages – 3% increases annually over the life of the contract. This is lower than UW Admin’s projected rates of inflation (4.2%, 5.5%, 5.5%) included in their own proposed costing of our initial proposals.
In essence, UW Admin’s initial wages proposal is a pay cut. In our bargaining survey, the message was clear: ASEs need to be paid sustainably to be able to live in the Puget Sound in order to continue working at the University of Washington. Our counter proposal maintains such an increase to our base wage by 60%, alongside adjustment for inflation throughout the duration of the contract.
Article 13: Insurance Programs & Appendix 1: GAIP
Our current healthcare (GAIP) is one of the strongest and most inclusive plans in the higher ed sector – a direct result of strong collective actions by ASEs past and present over the last twenty years. Rather than building on this towards healthcare support that continues to set industry standards, UW Admin is proposing to undo this progress by rolling back premiums from full coverage to 85%.
This proposal means that ASE working throughout the academic year would pay $1092 for the same level of healthcare coverage that we currently have, with no additional vision and dental care benefits or increased dependent coverage.
In the coming days, the 2024 ASE Bargaining Portal will be added to the UAW 4121 website. In the meantime, you can access & read the proposals from today’s bargaining session here.
Questions? Want to get more involved? Reach out to ase-bargaining@uaw4121.org.
In solidarity,
ASE Bargaining Team
Natalie Wellen (Applied Mathematics)
Justin Applegate (Biochemistry)
Tahiyat Rahman (Physics)
Anastasia Schaadhardt (Information School)
Soohyung Hur (Geography)
Yuying Xie (Geography)
Francesca Colonnese (English)
Candice Young (Molecular & Cellular Biology)
Natasha Crepeau (Mathematics)
Nelson Niu (Mathematics)
Jayden Wood (Mechanical Engineering)
Peter Lindquist (Earth & Space Sciences)
