4/28 Bargaining Summary // RSVP for May Day meeting

Our next scheduled bargaining session is tomorrow, 4/29, from 9am-5pm. We will have a caucus at 9am to develop counter proposals to admin’s package today, as well as working on logistics and turnout for our May Day meeting. All members are welcome and encouraged to participate in bargaining sessions — for more info on how to join, check out this page on the website.

At our 5pm membership meeting, over 300 union members had an extensive conversation about the current state of proposals, our strategy to win the best possible contract in our current negotiations, and how we can build a strong union in the long term.

As negotiations continue, we will need to discuss our next steps and how to respond to any further offers from the UW administration. Please join an all-members May Day meeting on Saturday at 2pm! RSVP for this meeting now, and join the Slack to discuss and prepare with other members, including in the #questions channel.

4/28 Bargaining Summary  

We did not anticipate a bargaining session today, but the UW administration asked for a meeting at 4:15pm to present a counter proposal to our “what-if” proposal from yesterday. Their proposal included effective wage increases of 0.5%, 1%, and 1% during the three years of the contract, a withdrawal of their “resignation and abandonment” article, and minor changes to other articles which you can read details on below.

We are happy to have pressured admin to move off of the resignation and abandonment article, but we do not feel that this offer from UW meets our members’ needs.

4/28 Proposals Summary 

• Childcare: Admin increased the cap in the 2nd year to $67,250 (from their previous proposal of $65,000). The cap in other years and the amount per ASE in each year remained the same.
• Insurance Programs: Admin is suggesting a TA (tentative agreement). Note that this is an agreement to the article, but not to Appendix 1 (which contains our benefits information, including mental health care coverage rates – see below).
• Non-Discrimination and Harassment: Admin made minor grammatical edits and agree that we are coming close to being in agreement on this article.
• Wages: Admin is newly proposing either 90% of median or a .5% wage increase (whichever is greater) in the first year and then, like their previous proposal, a 1% wage increase or 90% of the median (whichever is lower) for the next two years
• Holidays, Leaves of Absence,and Vacation: Admin is including Workday tracking for personal holidays, leaves of absence, and vacation effective September 16th, 2022. They continue to push back on a 12-month roll-over for leaves of absence time.
• Workload: Admin tentatively agreed to our suggested language.  
• Duration: Admin maintained a 3-year duration.
• Appendix I: GAIP Group Medical Plan Summary: Admin did not propose any changes to the appendix from their last proposal. This proposal still does not meet our members’ needs. However, based on some small-group discussions today, they indicated that they may have an updated appendix proposal for us tomorrow. 

You can find the more specific details about each of these here, and full text of all proposals here.

In Solidarity,