Our History

Humble Beginnings

Our union organizing got started in Fall 2018. At the beginning only 2 people made up the Organizing Committee (OC), but the effort quickly began to grow. By Spring 2019, the OC had grown exponentially to around 30 people! And then things really started to pick up.

Hello World

On July 31, 2019, Professional Staff at IHME made the intention to form a union public to the world! Undersigned by many members, our Union sent a letter via email to all IHME employees making the organizing effort known. While the OC still faced many barriers in reaching eligible members, organizing was no longer a secret and the support for our Union only grew larger! After about 1 month of organizing publicly, the OC was ready to take its next big step -- filing!

Labor Day Special

On September 3rd, 2019, our union filed a petition to unionize with the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC). It was the perfect way to celebrate Labor Day (observed the previous day)! While this wasn't the end of the road, this was a huge step in the organizing process. The OC sent another letter to all IHME employees detailing the accomplishment, and it featured even more signatories than the first letter sent in July. Our Union was growing, but the OC faced its biggest challenge yet: working with IHME & UW to finalize a bargaining unit.

Hard Work, Big Rewards

After several collection actions made by union members and meetings with IHME HR & UW Labor Relationships, an agreement was made on the bargaining unit! After that, PERC ordered an immediate move to "card check", the process in which PERC verifies and counts all of the membership forms submitted by Union members. In order to win recognition of our union, the number of membership forms must have equalled 50%+1 of the bargaining unit.

On Friday, January 3, 2020, PERC notified the OC that card check was successful and the IHME Professional Staff Union was recognized! A week later, our union was certified and the OC started on the journey toward bargaining!

To learn more about the status of our union in the bargaining process, check out the Bargaining Updates page.

We Wouldn't Be Here Without YOU!

Words cannot truly express how thankful we are for those that have been involved with organizing our union.

A huge thank you to the Organizing Committee, the staff at SEIU 925, and most importantly, Union Members!