Friday, July 19, 2019
Dear Colleague,
U-PASS Update
This week, the University was recognized as Commute Trip Reduction Champion, and received an award for providing some of their employees – those in the coalition of campus unions – with subsidized U-PASSes. This award thus belongs to every one of us – by signing cards and letters, filling out surveys, showing up to actions, and voting to ratify the contract, we made a free U-PASS possible!
Despite accepting this award and having signed a contract mandating a July 1st start of the subsidized U-PASS for Postdocs, the administration is delaying implementation, citing “administrative difficulties which will take several months to resolve.” We have filed a union grievance and are collaborating with a coalition of unions across campus to ensure a quick resolution. If you have specific questions or concerns, please reach out via email and/or let us know about your concerns, experiences, and any correspondence you’ve had with UW about U-PASS by completing this form.
Wages Implementation is August 1st!
The Wages Article of our contract, including new pay scale minima, comes into effect August 1! However, we are aware of a few instances of Postdocs whose appointment letters for after August 1st have wages below the contractually agreed minima; as well as instances where PI-supported raises above the minima have been refused, despite nothing in the contract preventing discretionary raises at any time.
Please contact us as soon as possible if you are experiencing any difficulty with wages. We are also currently putting together a Wages FAQ for the website.
Membership
The most important step you can take to ensure smooth contract implementation and strong enforcement on issues like the U-PASS and wages is to build support by signing up to become a member, if you haven’t already.
You can ask questions about membership/leave your membership form with one of your Postdoc colleges (UAW 4121 sign) at the Rotunda in HSB, every day next week from 12:00 PM-1:00 PM.
Other ways to get involved:
- Be a Postdoc representative on campus-wide committees! As part of our contract, we also get the right to participate in the University Transportation Committee and University-Wide Health and Safety Committee, where we can bring Postdoc concerns and stay informed of any potential changes to our working conditions. In addition, we are recruiting Postdocs to serve on the Joint Union-Management Committee which will meet regularly with the University to work together on issues facing Postdocs in between contracts. Respond to this email by July 26 if you are interested in serving as a Postdoc representative on any of these three committees!
- Apply for Training Specialist Position (Prevention of Sexual Harassment Program)! The position we negotiated with UW has now been posted. Feel free to contact us (uwpostdocsunited@gmail.com) if you’re interested or would like to discuss this exciting new program.
- Join a working group! As a reminder, we currently have four active working groups serving critical roles: International Postdocs (pdinternational@uaw4121.org), Postdoc Parents (pdparenting@uaw4121.org), Healthcare (pdhealthcare@uaw4121.org), and Non-Discrimination and Harrassment (pdantidiscrimination@uaw4121.org). Get in touch using the respective emails if you would like to be involved (see last week’s email for more details!).
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