January 11, 2023
On Wednesday, we had a full day of bargaining scheduled with WSU Admin – but they continued to stall and did not pass any proposals on Wages, Fees, or Leaves.
ICYMI, we are less than 1 WEEK AWAY from our January 17 deadline to WSU Admin for a fair contract. To find more details about proposals discussed at bargaining, read on below. As a reminder, you can review all of the full proposals that were presented in the Bargaining Center, take a look at a Summary of Proposals to gain an understanding of what’s still on the table, and RSVP to attend further bargaining sessions (including January 12) here.
- Sign-up for Picket Shifts **ESSENTIAL**
- RSVP for a Strike training session
- Talk as a department/cohort about your plan for the strike. Reply to this email if you’d like guidance with the conversation.
- Join a committee
Our ASE bargaining team had a meeting scheduled with Admin on Wednesday from 9AM to 5PM, but we spent most of the session talking to a mediator. Admin did not present counters for any of the remaining articles other than healthcare and instead expressed their disappointment in our latest comprehensive package proposal from 1/3/24 (read more about it on the bargaining website!).
We are disappointed by how out-of-touch Admin are with what ASEs need. In almost a year of bargaining, Admin have never budged on waiving fees, have acted illegally and made unilateral actions on our health insurance plan (which is now leading to delays in bargaining real changes in benefits), have pushed back on improving leave benefits, and have refused to provide us with living wages. We need pay increases that reflect the increasing cost-of-living, we need fee waivers that are not misleading, we need reasonable leave time, and we need health insurance benefits that are not going to bankrupt us.
Admin passed us a “what-if” proposal in the afternoon on Healthcare that would slightly increase the amount WSU invests in our healthcare plan in future years, but would not ensure that our priority changes to the plan occur this year. We demand to negotiate the benefits design of our health insurance plan. Admin’s move on health insurance shows that they are open to finally negotiating insurance, but they’re missing the mark. Admin created this problem in the first place and are unwilling to take responsibility.
Admin’s behavior at the table shows where their priorities actually lie, and it’s clear ASEs are not one of them. Admin have said that what they have offered is beyond what the university can sustain. These are budgetary priorities – Admin have shown that they can sustain Admin pay, but they cannot find any money for us ASEs who do the work. Top Administrators at WSU have sustained an over 30% pay increase in the past 5 years, while ASEs have been left behind to bear the brunt of WSU’s “budget shortfalls” along with the rising cost of living. The university claims to have not given any employee group annual raises the size we’ve asked for, but many admin received more than 10% raise in their salary just between 2021-22.
TL;DR Admin has not shown any urgency towards getting us a fair contract that includes a full-tuition waiver, fair wages, reasonable leave, and decent health insurance. Sign up for your picket shift now!!
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)