Membership Meeting Thurs 3/11
As a reminder, our next membership meeting will be tomorrow, Thursday 3/11 from 5-6pm via Zoom. To access the link and/or call-in number, please fill out this short form. All members in good standing are encouraged to attend, and anyone who is not yet a member can sign up here beforehand. Everyone is encouraged to login five minutes before the 5pm start time to help expedite the check-in process. The proposed agenda for the meeting is as follows:
- Approve Agenda
- Approve Minutes
- Postdoc bargaining
- ASE bargaining
- Organizing trainings
- Report back from Housing Justice Convention
- Solidarity with Bessemer Amazon Workers
- Upcoming Events and Actions
- Adjourn
For more information about how the meeting will be structured and how you can use Zoom’s features to participate, check out this page on our website. For specific concerns or accessibility needs, please reach out at uaw4121@uaw4121.org.
ASE Bargaining Friday 9am-1pm
Last week, over 100 members came together for an info and strategy session on Academic Student Employee Bargaining to discuss bargaining proposals as well as how to build the momentum needed to win on a number of critical issues, including wages, fees, healthcare, campus climate, mentorship, childcare, and more.
Bargaining begins this Friday from 9am-1pm, and all members are encouraged to participate! To join bargaining, members can fill out this form to get added to the bargaining Slack. Before each session, zoom info and other information will be posted to the Slack, where we can stay connected and coordinated throughout each session. If using Slack would be an issue for you, please contact ase-bargaining-team@uaw4121.org and organizers will troubleshoot to make sure all interested members are able to participate.
For more info on all aspects of bargaining — including schedule, proposals, and how to get involved — check out the ASE Bargaining Center.
Organizing Trainings
Join fellow UAW 4121 members for a series of organizing trainings this month to help grow our collective organizing capacity, skills, and community. These trainings are open to all members and will be a great opportunity to connect with fellow Academic Student Employees and Postdocs across UW. These two trainings build on each other, but it’s okay if you are only able to attend one.
Fundamentals for Building Power: 1-to-1 Organizing
- When: Thurs 3/18, 5-6pm
- How to join: RSVP here!
- Description: Learn about the most important organizing skill for building worker agency and power: one-to-one organizing! Individual conversations and relationships are key building blocks of worker empowerment and effective campaigns, and help us maintain our power and momentum even over long or difficult efforts. We will discuss and practice the most effective ways of talking to our colleagues about joining our union and taking collective action. No prior organizing experience needed!
Power Analysis & Building Power at UW
- When: Thurs 3/25, 5-6pm
- How to join: RSVP here!
- Description: This training will cover how our one-to-one organizing efforts are part of building our union’s collective power at UW, including in the context of our ongoing ASE contract campaign. We will discuss several recent examples from the U.S. labor movement, what we can learn from them, and how we can build power at UW.
Important Info for Members Working From Abroad
We recently learned that the Graduate School has started requiring Academic Student Employees working abroad to sign a new Declaration stating that an ASE must commit to a date to return to Seattle and that failure to do so constitutes termination of employment. It also requires the ASE to assume blanket liability for tax, legal, and financial consequences of working abroad. We have filed a grievance asserting that this requirement violates the non-discrimination protections in our collective bargaining agreement, as clearly the disproportionate impact of this requirement falls on non citizens (not simply people working outside of Seattle). We have also demanded that university administration cease and desist this requirement immediately and meet with us to resolve the grievance and make whole any losses people may have experienced.
If you have received this Declaration and are being asked to sign it, please reach out to intl-workgroup@uaw4121.org immediately. Also contact us if you’d like to help roll back this discriminationatory policy and move university administration to develop solutions that don’t undercut our basic contractual rights.
In solidarity,
