November 14, 2022
Welcome colleagues! This email is going to be long, so to start off:
TL; DR: We now have a certified union to represent academic student employees (ASEs) at WSU! This is based on consistent strong majority support for unionization by ASEs from across the state. If you’re receiving this email, you’re likely part of the bargaining unit. Collectively we’ve organized this union together to improve our working conditions at WSU. Check out our website to read more about our campaign and key issues ASEs have been mobilizing to address.
We’re currently preparing to go into our first bargaining session with WSU administrators, and need your feedback to inform our priorities in bargaining our first contract. You can do this by signing on to our initial bargaining demands, taking the bargaining survey, and/or joining the bargaining committee. We meet over zoom once a month, and this month, we will be talking about the process of bargaining and celebrating our certification. Please come if you can!
There are more details on all of this below.
What is WSU-CASE/UAW?
Academic Student Employees (ASEs) have been organizing to form a union at WSU over the past few years. ASEs are students employed by WSU to do instructional or research work. ASE is an umbrella term that includes Graduate Teaching, Research, Staff, Project, Veterinary Assistants; Tutors, Readers and Graders and any other student employee doing substantially similar work, regardless of funding source.
A union is an organized group of employees who work together to improve the working conditions of all through the power of collective bargaining. We, WSU academic student workers, are the union. By forming a union here at WSU, we gain the right to democratically negotiate terms and secure benefits in a legally binding contract with the university that cannot be unilaterally changed. We also gain more power to influence other decisions that affect us.
The goal of forming a union is to improve the working conditions and experience of teaching, research, and other activities at WSU. Our work contributes substantially to the learning and research missions of WSU and forming a union will enable us to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that legally protects and makes transparent the terms and conditions of our employment.
By forming a union, we strive to create a stronger and more equitable University, just as tens of thousands of other unionized employees at campuses like ours. Closest to home, we’ve worked closely with the University of Washington Academic Student Employee Union, UAW Local 4121, whose collective bargaining efforts continue to produce a multitude of improvements to the lives of thousands of ASEs.
Collective bargaining is a process, protected by state law, that equalizes the power relationship between employees and their employer. Under collective bargaining, WSU ASEs will elect peer representatives to negotiate as equals with the WSU administration. These negotiations result in a proposed contract called a tentative agreement which guarantees the terms and conditions of employment for ASEs. All ASEs will then be asked to vote to democratically approve the tentative agreement. If approved, the tentative agreement becomes a legally-binding contract.
Through collective bargaining, other academic workers across the country (such as Teaching Assistants, Postdocs, and Academic Researchers) have successfully negotiated improvements in their wages, benefits, job security, leaves, protections against harassment and discrimination, and many other terms and conditions of their employment.
As of Wednesday, November 9th, WSU-CASE officially received interim certification!
This process formalizes our majority choice to collectively bargain with the university and requires that WSU administration bargain with us as equals over wages, benefits and other terms of our employment. To ensure that we can bargain a strong first contract, here’s how you can help if you are interested:
Ways to get involved
- Sign on to the Initial Bargaining Demands! (if you only have time for one task, please sign on!) (30 seconds)
- Fill out the Bargaining Survey! (5-15 minutes)
- Nominate yourself for the Bargaining Committee! (30 seconds to complete the form and as much time as you’d like to commit)
- Talk to your friends and colleagues about signing on to the Initial Bargaining Demands and completing the Bargaining Survey! (as much time as you’d like to commit)
Please see below for more information about each of these tasks if you would like to learn more!
Initial Bargaining Demands
A group of ASEs are working on drafting initial bargaining demands, which everyone will have the opportunity to sign on to ratify. The initial bargaining demands are broad-picture descriptions (a mission-statement of sorts) of how we want to make changes and what we want our fair and equitable contract to look like. If you’d like to be involved in this process please respond to this message or email us at
You can read over and sign on to the initial bargaining demands at this link!
Bargaining Committee!
We will soon deliver our first request to bargain and ask WSU to begin negotiating this semester, so we need to elect a Bargaining Committee of ASEs. Working together, the Bargaining Committee will:
- Develop bargaining proposals based on survey data and conversations with fellow ASEs;
- Meet with WSU management during bargaining sessions;
- Communicate with ASEs about the progress of bargaining;
- Engage in outreach/organizing to ASEs across the state to build power; and
- Mobilize to win demands.
All ASEs are eligible to join the Bargaining Committee! No experience is required, and there is no set number of Bargaining Committee members. Everyone is encouraged to participate in a way they are able. If you are interested in joining the Bargaining Committee, you can self-nominate at this link. If you have any questions, please check out our FAQ or feel free to respond to this email and someone will be in touch.
The nomination period will end on November 23rd, and nominees will be elected in a unit-wide vote via email. Election to the bargaining committee will require that a majority of votes cast for each nominee to be in favor of the nomination (more details and instruction will be included in the voting email).
Fill out the bargaining survey!
If you haven’t already, please fill out the bargaining survey and share it with your friends, colleagues, and department! Link here. Completing the survey takes about 5-15 minutes, (dependent on how much feedback you want to give) and all responses will remain confidential. Having bargaining survey data from a majority of ASEs is critical as we enter into bargaining negotiations with WSU. The more people who fill out the survey and share their input, the stronger our voice for making important changes to our working conditions, so please be sure to give your input and share with your friends and colleagues.
Next Monthly Meeting
The next WSU-CASE monthly meeting will take place Wednesday, November 16th at 6:00pm over Zoom. During the meeting, we will celebrate the certification of our union and talk about the process of bargaining.
If you will be able to make it to the meeting, please register at this link. See you there!
Want to Learn More about WSU-CASE?
Check out the WSU-CASE website!
Read through frequently asked questions (FAQs) about WSU-CASE
See the press and media coverage of WSU-CASE
See the email digest of past WSU-CASE correspondence
If you’d like to discuss any of this information further don’t hesitate to reach out to us at contact@wsucase.org.
In solidarity,
Aurora Brinkman, Psychology (Pullman)
Priyanka Bushana, Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience (Spokane)
Carla De Lira, Computer Science (Pullman)
Gavin Doyle, English (Pullman)
Yiran Guo, Materials Science and Engineering (Pullman)
Danielle Holt, School of the Environment (Pullman)
Aaron Jesch, History (Vancouver)
Kelsey King, School of Biological Sciences (Vancouver)
Daniel McCloskey, Anthropology (Pullman)
Danny Powell, Veterinary Medicine (Pullman)
Kyle Rakowski, Sociology (Pullman)
Sadie Ridgeway, Sociology (Pullman)
Claudia Skinner, Languages, Cultures and Race (Pullman)
WSU-CASE/UAW Organizing Committee