On February 8th, 2022 our union entered a new round of negotiations with the Seattle Colleges District about our wages. Rank-and-file faculty are demanding an open negotiations process and a 40% wage increase. Here are our responses to some Frequently Asked Questions about our demands:
Why are we demanding a 40% wage increase?
Faculty at the Seattle Colleges are already underpaid. As recent numbers show, most of us would require a $23,000 pay increase to reach Seattle’s median income, or a roughly 40% pay increase to have salaries equivalent to our peer institutions. We should be able to do our jobs without having to worry about how we’re going to pay for food, housing, healthcare, and transportation.
What if we can’t get a 40% raise? Shouldn’t we negotiate for a raise we know our colleges will give us?
We are demanding the raise we need, based on the cost of living in Seattle. We should be able to afford to live in the city where we work, yet our current salaries don’t let us do that. As the cost of living in Seattle has skyrocketed over the last decade, faculty salaries have barely budged. During the same period, our colleges have asked that we do more on the job with fewer resources. The pandemic has only exacerbated this situation. Faculty are burned out and unable to truly care for themselves and their families.
Our salaries, as well as the salaries of our colleges’ frontline academic staff, need to be a priority in our district and state’s budgets. We aren’t demanding 40% from local funds alone. We’re demanding 40% because that’s what we need to survive in this city. If our district doesn’t have the funds locally, they should pursue them at the state level. The surplus is there, and the momentum is building across the state for more progressive taxation to increase funds to higher education. We expect our district administrators to actively lobby for funds to pay frontline academic workers. Our raises shouldn’t come off the backs of our union siblings but from the district and the state.
Why is it so important that we have open negotiations? What’s wrong with the way our union engaged in previous rounds of salary and contract negotiations with the Seattle Colleges District?
The way our union has conducted past rounds of salary and MOU negotiations with the district conforms to the service model of labor organizing, which divides us into leaders and constituents, insiders and outsiders, divesting rank-and-file faculty of our power as workers and encouraging us to negotiate the terms by which we work and live through representatives who supposedly advocate on our behalf. But years of closed-door negotiations have consistently failed to deliver the raises and working conditions we need to provide our students with the education they deserve. Closed-door negotiations have also undermined democracy in our union, generating a culture of insider politics where our elected union leaders are more beholden to district administrators and their spin on the situation at our colleges rather than the needs of rank-and-file faculty.
A strong union, one that can truly fight for us as academic workers, is an activist union. Management won’t give us the salaries and working conditions we need unless we as rank-and-file are organized around bold demands. To do this, we need to dismantle the service model of labor organizing and build power from below by directly participating in our union and our colleges. All of us must have seats at the bargaining table. It’s the way we hold our elected union leaders and district administrators accountable to the educational mission of our colleges, a mission we as academic workers carry out every day in the student learning we facilitate in our courses.
Does our demand for open negotiations amount to an “unfair labor practice” that could lead to the dissolution of our bargaining with the Seattle Colleges District?
We make our demand for open negotiations in good faith, and we expect the district to open up all bargaining sessions to all faculty. Rank-and-file faculty are the union, and when the Seattle Colleges District negotiates with our union, it must include all of us. Faculty have a right to be present in the spaces where our livelihoods are under discussion. It’s how we hold our union’s negotiations team and most importantly our district administration accountable to the academic workers who provide the labor on which our colleges run.
We take our participation in open negotiations seriously and adhere to a protocol of conduct. During open bargaining sessions, rank-and-file faculty who aren’t part of the negotiations team silently bear witness to the negotiations process. Rank-and-file note-takers make a record of what happens at each session and share this record with fellow rank-and-file faculty after the session.
When all of us are present during bargaining sessions, albeit silently, we represent our union. District administrators are both legally and ethically obligated to engage with us while they’re making important decisions about our wages and working conditions.
Open Negotiations Process - Existing Models
As we talked about Open negotiation at our RAF teach-in some solid examples are out there that can help provide a guide to how we can use Open negotiations to put pressure on the administration and give direct support to the negotiating chair and team.
Steps to a successful Open Negotiations process
Open to all Rank and File members and select community observers.
No barriers to accessing the meetings
On-going training on how to behave during the negotiations
Poker face
Mobilizing our biggest turnout for particularly high stakes meetings
Full transparency on negotiations from Negotiations Chair and Team
Assigned note takers
Assigned report out
Coordinated Space for negotiation reports and notes
Lets share Mark’s webpage here: https://www.uaw4121.org/2021-ase-bargaining/
Coordinating with Negotiations Chair and Team
Media Coordination
Swag and signs coordination
Phone, email, signal threads to contact Rank and File workers to attend open negotiations