4/26 Bargaining Summary // Important Membership Meeting Wed 4/28

Today’s Successful Rally

We had our eighth and most powerful bargaining session with the UW administration today. The big event today was our lunchtime rally that brought together nearly 1,000 members and community supporters in a clear demonstration to management that we are united and willing to fight for a strong contract. We are particularly grateful to our powerful community speakers, Kshama Sawant (Seattle City Councilmember and member of AFT 1789), Nikkita Oliver (community organizer and candidate for Seattle City Council), as well as our UW union siblings Dr. Heather Barnett (Residents & Fellow Physician Union) and Paula Lukaszek (WFSE 1488).

Unfortunately, with 400 members in the bargaining room, the UW administration did not budge on some of our most important proposals, such as increasing our wages to stay competitive with other schools, or expanding our successful EPIC anti-harassment program. They even stated that they would be initiating a slow and unhelpful mediation process. We should be clear: they are trying to cut across the momentum and energy we built at our rally today, and throw up obstacles between us and a fair contract. 

Membership Meeting Wed 4/28 at 5pm

All members are encouraged to attend a special membership meeting Wednesday at 5pm to discuss how we can escalate our campaign to win a strong contract. Please RSVP now and spread the word in your department!

4/26 Bargaining Summary 

After our lunchtime rally, we returned our counter-proposals to management where we also made movement on childcare and our insurance appendix to reflect the movement they had made in the morning. With over 400 members in the bargaining session with management we reiterated our position on a number of proposals such as wages, fees, and healthcare to be as clear as possible to management how important these articles are to our members. 

Management took caucus until 3pm and then returned with a new proposal that only made movement on childcare. While this movement is certainly welcomed, the lack of movement on any of the other outstanding articles is not sufficient to meet the needs of our members. After presenting their new proposal, management asked us if we would be willing to consider bringing in a mediator from PERC (Public Employment Relations Commission) because they felt we were having trouble communicating. We stated that we did not feel as if there were communication issues and that while we do not currently agree on a number of proposals we felt that not only has there been productive movement overall, that the introduction of a mediator would only slow down the bargaining process and make communication more difficult. Most importantly, we feel as though a mediator will make it more difficult to reach agreement by the time our contract expires on Friday.

Bringing a mediator into the bargaining process is a decision that can be applied by either party unilaterally, meaning that both sides do not need to agree in order for a mediator to be brought into negotiations. Although we declined management’s offer to agree to a mediator, they notified us that they would file for a mediator at 9am tomorrow morning. We took a caucus after this announcement by management and agreed to end bargaining for the day while we work on counter proposals to management’s latest offer. 

4/26 Proposals Summary

• Childcare: In the morning UW proposed to increase the ASE childcare allotment to $1350 per person starting in 2022 with a $65,000 total fund amount. By 2023 this total fund amount would increase to $70,200. Our counter proposal in the afternoon moved to bring our per person allotment to $1700 a quarter with a total fund increase to $100,000.
• Health Insurance: One of our core health insurance proposals has been to decrease out of pocket costs for mental health coverage by covering all mental health care 100%. Today management moved slightly on this demand by proposing to increase coverage for out-of-network mental health care from 60% to 65%. In our counter, we maintained our proposal for full coverage of mental health care but moved off of proposals modifying out-of-pocket maximums.
• You can find full text of every proposal passed on the Proposals Tracking page, and a quick guide on where some of the key proposals stand here. For more info, check out the Bargaining Center or email ase-bargaining-team@uaw4121.org.

Social media 

Please use the hashtag #WeAre4121 when you post on social media about our proposals, organizing actions, and bargaining in general! This way, we can continue the conversation online, and in particular, all members are encouraged to post about how the proposals that have come up in bargaining impact our lives and work as ASEs, as well as how taking action together through our union enables us to take on structural issues at UW and in our community. And engage with content from other union members as well! The links to the UAW 4121 social media channels are: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.

In Solidarity,