July 5, 2019
Dear Colleague,
Last summer, UAW 4121 / UW Postdocs United and Academic Student Employees (ASEs) worked alongside campus Unions, community groups, and progressive allies to push UW to provide a free U-PASS for all UW employees. We won a free U-PASS for all ASEs and Postdocs, and (page 58) clearly stipulates that postdocs will not be charged a U-PASS fee beginning July 1st.
Recently, we learned that the University may be intending to delay the start date of the free U-PASS for Postdocs (along with adamantly denying U-PASS subsidies to ~1,000 hourly ASEs). This violates our collective bargaining agreement, and this week we filed a grievance. We await a response from the university.
To strategize actions to secure the U-PASS for all bargaining unit employees, we are convening an action meeting on Wednesday, July 10th at 12pm in Research Commons Red A (Allen Library).
Sign up to be a member. Our membership determines our power. This directly affects how quickly we can get the free U-PASS sorted out, and whether we will be able to bargain for even higher wages when the NIH pay scale changes (very well might happen at the end of the summer!). Being a member also allows you to participate in our union’s democracy – stay tuned about upcoming leadership elections.
Sincerely,
The UW Postdocs United / UAW 4121 Bargaining Committee.
Tina Angerer, Bioengineering
Pamela Baker, Biological Structure
Leandro Casiraghi, Biology
Matthew Crane, Chemistry
Ivan Cruz, Biological Structure
Marina Dütsch, Earth and Space Sciences
Max Friedfeld, Chemistry
Kelly Hines, Medicinal Chemistry
Hannah Horowitz, Atmospheric Sciences
Ajay Jajodia, Medical Genetics
Andrew Jenkins, Chemistry
Jiae Lee, Biochemistry
Michael Mack, Chemistry
Kim Meier, Psychology
Kelly Patton, Physics
Cristi Proistosescu, Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean
Abdul Basit Shaikh, Pharmaceutics
Michael Taylor, Bioengineering
Jian Wang, Chemistry
Alex White, Psychology
Huajun Xu, Chemistry