May 26, 2023
We had an action-packed morning of bargaining on Wednesday, 5/24.
TL;DR:
- We reached a Tentative Agreement on Retirement Benefits!
- We had a conversation on the Accommodations counter proposal that Admin presented during our last session.
- We presented new proposals on Vacation policies and long and short-term Leaves.
- Admin mentioned that the University will be allocated money from the state budget in July, which may impact our wage & compensation negotiations. We started to discuss how we will bargain wage increases for this upcoming academic year, and will continue to work on this in the following weeks.
- Admin say they’re close to presenting counters to the rest of our Equity Day proposals. We will likely see these during the next bargaining session on Tuesday 5/30 from 10-5PM (RSVP here)!
- Excitingly, Postdocs at WSU are beginning to organize their own union! RSVP to the Monthly Meeting at 5PM, next Wednesday 5/31 to hear more and learn how we can coordinate efforts and to join the conversation about wages!
As always, these proposals and counter proposals can be viewed on our online bargaining portal.
The details of what happened on Wednesday:
We asked a series of questions in response to admin’s Accommodations counter proposal. The committee is advocating for ASEs to be able to determine their accommodations. However, Admin believes that the University should always make the final decision in determining accommodations and that ASEs must always provide documentation in order to receive accommodations. We also discussed the communication timeline regarding accommodations; the current timeline is not meeting the needs of ASE’s, and we are proposing a timeline to better support the accommodations process. Admin believes the status quo (i.e., no defined timeline) is in line with what is required by law and therefore should be sufficient in meeting the needs of ASEs. Their answers to our questions were concerning and disheartening. We know that progress on these issues will give ASEs support in their workplaces & will continue to push Admin on this issue.
We presented a new proposal for Leaves. For long term leaves, our initial proposal states that ASEs can annually request up to 16-weeks of long-term leave under several conditions related to health or to care for family members. We used 16-weeks as a guideline as it is the maximum time allowed for long-term leave under Paid Family Medical Leave (PFML). Most ASEs are not eligible for PFML due to hours restrictions, because we are often only paid for 20h/week. Our intent was to even the playing field for those ASEs who are & aren’t eligible for PFML. We also used this article to define other leave policies including unpaid leave, bereavement leave, military leave, jury duty, internship leave, childcare emergencies, and leave without pay for reasons of faith/conscience. The short-term/sick leave component of this proposal was particularly contentious to management, as they believe that it is unrealistic to allow ASEs to use sick leave at our discretion and to award as much sick leave as we’ve proposed (which works out to roughly 2 days per month). If you’re interested in participating in discussions around leave policies, please reply to this email or indicate your interest here.
We also presented a new proposal that outlines Vacation time. Currently, there is no policy that guarantees vacation time for all ASEs. For some ASEs, academic breaks like Thanksgiving and spring break and the breaks between semesters are treated like vacations. For others, departmental policies allow vacation only at the discretion of supervisors, without any guidelines. Some ASEs are not afforded any vacation time at all. As there are currently no clear standards for vacation time, this proposal codifies the amount of time (24 days for a full year appointment, and prorated based on appointment length and FTE). Additionally, as not all student’s schedules align with the academic breaks, our proposal allows ASE’s to schedule vacation time when it works best for their schedule, rather than following academic calendars. Admin pushed back on the idea that we might be interested in taking vacation outside of academic breaks.
Finally, Admin mentioned they wanted to avoid having another “fire-drill” like the healthcare debacle by letting us know that they have an impending deadline regarding compensation increases. WSU will need to determine its budget for the upcoming year by July, including wage increases for all types of employees. We are in discussions about how to best bargain wages, both for the upcoming Fall and beyond. To get involved in these conversations, please fill out this form to join the workgroup or come discuss at the monthly meeting next Wednesday!
At the end of the meeting, admin stated they will be presenting counters to proposals we presented during Equity day including Immigration, Anti-Discrimination, and Respectful Workplace (and potentially Sexual Harassment Prevention Training) at our next bargaining session on Tuesday, May 30th. The next session promises to be busy and we’re eagerly anticipating their responses on these matters. Join us in the bargaining room if you’d like to hear more!
MAY MONTHLY MEETING
If you haven’t already, remember to register for our upcoming monthly meeting on Wednesday, May 31st at 5:00pm.
We will discuss how we plan to bargain Wages. In addition, we will be joined by WSU Postdocs (welcome!) who are at the beginning of their own authorization card drive to discuss how we can combine our efforts to fight for a more equitable WSU.
Please pass this link on & discuss with your classmates and colleagues!
Summer Bargaining Continues
As always, all ASEs are welcome to participate in bargaining, RSVP here. You are welcome to come for any amount of time and participate however you feel comfortable; stopping by just to listen in is great too! You can also join workgroups or the weekly BC meeting by RSVPing here.
In Solidarity,
Acacia Patterson, Physics & Astronomy (Pullman)
Adam Bozman, Carson College of Business – Finance (Pullman)
Andre Diehl, Comparative Ethnic Studies (Pullman)
Arianna Gonzales, Psychology (Pullman)
Aurora Brinkman, Psychology (Pullman)
Chelsea Mitchell, School of the Environment (Puyallup Research and Extension Center)
Chia-Hui Chen, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (Spokane)
Claudia Skinner, School of Languages, Cultures, and Race (Pullman)
Cody Lauritsen, College of Veterinary Medicine (Pullman)
Coty Jasper, Integrative Physiology & Neuroscience (Vancouver)
Dano Holt, School of the Environment (Pullman)
Evan Domsic, Crop and Soil Science (Mount Vernon NWREC)
Gavin Doyle, English (Pullman)
Hannah Cohen, Veterinary Clinical Sciences (Pullman)
Kartik Sreedhar, Physics & Astronomy (Pullman)
Kayla Spawton, Plant Pathology (Mount Vernon NWREC)
Kelsey King, School of Biological Sciences (Vancouver)
Miles Hopkins, School of the Environment (Pullman)
Miranda Zuniga-Kennedy, Clinical Psychology (Pullman)
Naseeha Cardwell, Chemical Engineering & Bioengineering (Pullman/Tri-Cities)
Natalie Yaw, Chemistry (Pullman)
Ninh Khuu, Plant Pathology (Prosser)
Peter Obi, Pharmaceutical Sciences (Spokane)
Raymond Bennett, Psychology (Pullman)
Rebecca Evans, Biology (Vancouver)
Shawn Domgaard, Communication (Pullman)
Tazin Rahman, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (Pullman)
Tholen Justin Blasko, Animal Sciences (Pullman)
Victor Moore, History (Pullman)
Victoria Oyanna, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (Spokane)
Whitney Shervey, Sociology (Pullman)
Yiran Guo, Mechanical and Materials Engineering (Pullman)