Work-in Action at Dean’s Office

On Thursday, a delegation of UAW Local 4121 members staged a one hour “work-in” at the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s office to highlight one aspect of our bargaining agenda that has not received a meaningful response in bargaining: instructional quality.

While a digital clock counted down the time, we informed Arts and Sciences Dean Robert Stacey that the time we spent in his office paled in comparison to the 1.3 million hours of instructional work each year performed by academic student employees.  Although we’ve already won strong workload protections in the collective bargaining agreement, (including against workload issues that result from class size increases), this year we’re pushing for a greater role in the process of determining class size or other policies related to instructional quality.  We reiterated to the Dean what we’ve said many times to University representatives at the bargaining table: Our collective instructional experience provides valuable insight into the day to day needs of students, and warrants our greater inclusion in decision-making.

(For more photos of the event, check out UAW 4121’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as the hashtag #workatUW)

The newly created mobilization work group, which organized the work-in, is planning further actions to highlight other aspects of our bargaining agenda, and encourages your input and participation!  Please contact Alli Germain to get more involved.

Bargaining Update

On Wednesday and Thursday we met with the University to continue our bargaining negotiations.  In general, the story here remains the same–the University has provided little meaningful response to our proposals–but we did reach agreement that many of the articles in the contract will remain unchanged.  See our complete bargaining summaries here.

April Membership Meeting

 

Mark your calendars: Our next membership meeting will take place on Thursday, April 16th at 4:30 p.m. (room TBD). All members in good standing are encouraged to attend, and as always children are welcome and new members may sign up to join the union at the meeting.

 

Election Reminder

Reminder, the deadline to accept nomination in our union’s election for Steward positions is Monday (3/23/2015) at 5 PM.  For more details please see the election notice here.