December 5, 2023
Yesterday, 50 Academic Student Employees (ASEs) marched to Chancellor Chilton’s office and staged a sit-in to demonstrate the urgent need for a fair contract. Our group requested a meeting with Chancellor Elizabeth Chilton to demand that she direct the WSU Admin bargaining team to do what it takes to reach an agreement by December 15.
Our demonstration garnered a quick response, with Chancellor Chilton canceling another meeting to arrive on the WSU Pullman campus within the hour to meet with us, along with other WSU leadership, including Vice Provost of Graduate and Professional Education Tammy Barry and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Leslie Brunelli. ASEs pressed Chancellor Chilton on the need for meaningful movement from WSU Admin’s bargaining team, rather than the stalling and delaying that we’ve experienced. We made it clear that the disruption of our action today was nowhere near the disruption ASEs experience from having to go hungry, forgo essential medical care, and face harassment and discrimination without real recourse.
WSU Admin is feeling the pressure from our actions. Late Friday night, Chancellor Chilton responded to last week’s faculty and staff letter claiming a shared sense of urgency towards the bargaining process. Yesterday, the Chancellor and her team again suggested that the three one-hour side-table conversations scheduled for this week and the sole bargaining day scheduled for December 11 were sufficient. Our ASE team asserted that this is not acceptable. There are 21 articles still left on the table that simply cannot be covered in the time that Admin has offered.
Now, just 24 hours after our sit-in, Chancellor Chilton has responded via email and offered 2.5 additional bargaining days – a full day tomorrow December 6 and December 13, and a half day on December 15 (you can RSVP to attend these bargaining sessions using this link). This is an excellent achievement on the part of ASEs – for weeks WSU Admin’s bargaining team had been saying they couldn’t give us any further dates, and now our pressure has delivered results!
We must not let up on the pressure though. Whilst Admin has now agreed to additional bargaining dates, we need to see meaningful movement towards us. They have not provided counterproposals on Wages and other economic issues since September 19; we urgently need to make progress on these and the rest of the remaining 21 proposals. We are planning a Work-In for this Friday December 8th from 10am to 2pm. To attend, meet your fellow ASEs at 9.45am to walk over to the Work-In together (RSVP here to receive meeting location and more details).
Our pressure campaign is working. We will continue our direct actions until a fair first contract is achieved. Join in on planning and participating in these actions via this link.
In Solidarity,
WSU-CASE Bargaining Committee:
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)
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)