May 11, 2022
We hope this email finds you well and that you had a fantastic time at your campus rally last week!
What a week we’ve had! On Wednesday May 4th academic student employees from the Puyallup Research and Extension Center travelled to Olympia to deliver WSU-CASE UAW’s petition for union representation! To mark this momentous occasion and demonstrate our collective power there were rallies held at multiple campuses and extension centers. At these rallies we heard from fellow academic student employees about how far we’ve come in forming a union, why they’re passionate about unionizing, and how unionizing will create a more equitable WSU! You can see more photos of the rallies via our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We also delivered our petition and an open letter to WSU administration at each of the rally locations. We’ve received impressive press coverage so far about our filing for union certification, including from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, KXLY, The Stranger, The Stand, KOMO News, The Tri-City Herald, and The Spokesman-Review. 
Share the links with your colleagues and friends so that we can spread the word about this outstanding achievement!
From here there are still more exciting steps to come in establishing the union and winning our first contract!
Certification
The state labor board, PERC (Public Employment Relations Commission), will review our union authorization cards against an employment list provided by WSU. WSU will not see these cards; PERC keeps them confidential. Although a batch of cards signed by a solid majority of ASEs has already been submitted to PERC, we can continue to submit cards until we’re certified. Please continue reaching out to your colleagues and friends so our mandate can become even stronger! PERC will verify that at minimum 30% of ASEs have signed cards so that the petition can proceed through the certification process. WSU Administration will then have the opportunity to respond or object to the petition prior to PERC certifying our majority (either through validating that a majority (50%+1) of ASEs have signed authorization cards or by ordering a representation election). WSU admin can also voluntarily recognize us. As of today we have not received a direct response from WSU Administration, but Phil Weiler, the vice president of university marketing and communications at WSU told the Moscow-Pullman Daily News in an article published today that the University “supports the right of workers to organize.” Based on the unionization processes at other universities, it’s likely we’ll need to continue taking action so we can win recognition and a strong first contract. As long as we continue to spread the word about our movement and speak up to and take action to advocate for change we are confident that we will be successful in building a more equitable WSU.
“Dynamic Status Quo”
During this certification period the University will also enter a “dynamic status quo” period. This is a short-term legal measure to ensure that workers can’t be penalized or rewarded for forming a union, and prohibits the employer from making changes to terms and conditions that they hadn’t regularly made or approved before the petition was filed. Note that this is not the same as a “freeze” on all changes to terms and conditions. While certain types of changes to terms and conditions can’t be made during status quo, the University is actually required under law to follow through with changes that had been planned prior to the filing of our petition. If you hear of any issues or problems please reach out to us right away.
Preparing for Bargaining
Filing our petition is a huge step forward, as it puts us closer to being able to democratically decide our terms and conditions of employment as equals with the University administration. In the coming weeks and months we will prepare for bargaining by developing more extensive surveys about what every ASE would like to see improved, holding department meetings to discuss how best to win the things we need, and further developing our capacity to communicate and mobilize as needed.
We’ll talk more about these steps at our next monthly meeting, which will take place on Wednesday May 25th at 6pm via zoom! Until then, if you have any questions or would like to be more involved, please do not hesitate to reach out to contact@wsucase.org.
In solidarity,
Aurora Brinkman, Psychology (Pullman)
Priyanka Bushana, Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience (Spokane)
Furkan Cakmak, Political Science (Pullman)
Sarah Fakhoury, Computer Science (Pullman)
Yonas Gezahegn, Biosystems Engineering (Pullman)
Danielle Holt, School of the Environment (Pullman)
Aaron Jesch, History (Vancouver)
Kelsey King, School of Biological Sciences (Vancouver)
Kathryn Manis, English (Pullman)
Daniel McCloskey, Anthropology (Pullman)
Emma McMain, Educational Psychology (Pullman)
Kyle Rakowski, Sociology (Pullman)
Heather Ramos, English (Pullman)
Sadie Ridgeway, Sociology (Pullman)
Claudia Skinner, Languages, Cultures and Race (Pullman)
Kartik Sreedhar, Physics and Astronomy (Pullman)
WSU CASE/UAW Organizing Committee