Bargaining Updates
November 18th, 2020 - WE RATIFIED OUR FIRST CONTRACT!
After the Bargaining Team TA-ed (Tentatively Agreeing on) the full contract, our members voted on it from November 14th-17th. With 90% of our membership turning out, we voted 99.3% in favor to ratify the contract! The contract will be posted here when we have the official version. It goes into effect immediately, with compensation changes and dues going into effect on January 1st, 2021.
October 29th, 2020 - 20th Session
Our Bargaining Team was at the table again on Wednesday, October 29, and we are thrilled to share that they reached tentative agreement with the UW on our ENTIRE contract! We had already reached agreement with the UW on nearly everything except compensation, and on Wednesday, the Bargaining Team negotiated a very impressive compensation package! They are currently putting all of the various documents together, but we will share the full contract with you as soon as it is ready! Additionally, we will be holding ratification meetings (see below) to discuss the contract and next steps in detail. For now, here are some highlights from the compensation package:
Supervisors will finally be able to nominate employees for promotions and in-grade salary increases, and the resulting raises will be retroactive to July 1
New minimum salaries for most IHME job classes that will result in raises for 87 bargaining unit employees effective January 1
Everyone whose salary does not increase by at least 3% as a result of the higher minimums will receive a 3% raise January 1
Everyone in the bargaining unit will receive a 2% raise on July 1, 2022
We will renegotiate compensation for the final year of our contract, when economic conditions should be improved statewide
October 12th, 2020 - 19th Session
On Monday, October 12, our Bargaining Team (BAT) held their nineteenth virtual bargaining session with IHME and UW Labor Relations (UWLR). While IHME and UWLR presented a number of counterproposals, the most important work from Monday’s session centered on wages. Our BAT presented a package consisting of counterproposals on Compensation; Hiring, Promotions, and Transfers; and a table of wages for employees in our bargaining unit.
We believe that a fair compensation package needs to do three things:
Improve pay equity by immediately increasing salaries for our lowest-paid members
Provide predictable, dependable increases to salaries
Create and enhance opportunities to grow at IHME over time
IHME and UWLR’s most recent proposal, which we reported on previously, clearly fails to live up to these values; we await their next response.
September 28th, 30th and October 5th, 2020 - 16th, 17th and 18th Sessions
The Bargaining Action Team (BAT) was involved in their eighteenth virtual bargaining session with representatives from UW Labor Relations (UWLR) and IHME on Monday, October 5. The BAT also bargained with UWLR and IHME on Monday, September 28 and Wednesday, September 30. We are happy to report progress toward Tentative Agreements (TAs) on eighteen contract elements concerning such issues as:
Exit Interviews
IHME/UW agreed to give our union notice of someone’s termination (voluntary or involuntary) within five business days in order for the union to have adequate time to perform exit interviews. These interviews will be held confidentially, and will provide the union with anonymized information to better understand why people leave IHME.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
Our union will be able to contribute ideas and, where appropriate, participate in planning and executing of activities intended to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). This MOU formalizes IHME’s intention to encourage feedback and to identify and implement activities and processes to foster greater DEI. Upon request, IHME will meet with the union and the consulting company Paradigm to solicit input regarding the formal structure and its make-up prior to implementation, no later than March 31, 2021.
Innovation Time
This is a big win for us! This contract element stipulates IHME will allow employees time to work on innovative projects not otherwise tied to committed deliverables.
Juneteenth MOU
In an effort to acknowledge significant and often overlooked racism and violence in our country, and in recognition that progress for equity must continue in order to ensure all have equal access and opportunity, this MOU will provide our union with an opportunity to bargain the implementation of Juneteenth as a paid holiday if Juneteenth is officially recognized as a state holiday by the State of Washington.
Other TAs include such issues as:
Classification/Reclassification
Community Service Days
Contract Distribution
Grievance Procedure
Hours of Work
Late Night Meals
Management Rights
New Employee Orientation
Overtime
Personal Services
Preamble/Purpose
Professional Development
Represented Limited Term Hourly Employees
A TA means that both a union and employer agree to include the items contained in the future contract proposal so that they can move on to other topics. If you’d like to learn more about recent TAs, please join us during our next membership meeting. Membership meetings aren’t just ways to stay caught up on bargaining -- they’re also opportunities to hear directly from members of the BAT who get in the nitty gritty on what negotiations are like and how we can take action to support them. Members are also welcome to reply to this email with specific questions about anything related to bargaining (and anything else related to our union). Keep an eye out for an email soon with details about our next membership meeting!
The BAT is hard at work fighting for a fair compensation article, including annual cost of living increases and optimal salary minimums and maximums. They will return to the bargaining table on Monday, October 12 with a response to UWLR and IHME’s counterproposal on the subject.
September 23rd, 2020 - 15th Session
The Bargaining Team had their fifteenth virtual bargaining session on September 23rd. The most important counterproposals presented by the UW/IHME team focused on our wages. They proposed a Compensation article and a wage scale, along with an MOU on Promotion Reviews and In-Grade Reviews. We remain very far apart from the UW on wages. Two and a half months ago, our BAT proposed annual across-the-board raises totaling 9%. The UW’s counter does not include any across-the-board raises for the life of the contract, and instead proposes establishing a pool of funds equal to 0.5% of bargaining unit employees’ salaries and requiring employees to compete with each other for raises that would be approved or denied by management. There is still a lot of ground to cover when it comes to wages, and we are disappointed that it took the UW/IHME team this long to provide such a dissatisfying counterproposal.
In better news, the UW’s counterproposal for New Employees incorporates language bargained by our classified staff colleagues that guarantees time for Union presentations during online new employee orientations. Even more importantly, their counterproposal for Classification and Reclassification acknowledges how new non-supervisory professional staff positions at IHME will be considered part of our bargaining unit, and it outlines specific procedures that the UW will have to follow in order to show that a newly created position does not properly belong in our bargaining unit.
Beyond these proposals, which our BAT discussed at last week’s session, the UW also emailed proposals concerning Exit Interviews, Professional Development, Community Service Days (a counter to our proposal on Civic Engagement, Community Service, and Civil Rights Remembrance), and Transportation, Travel, and Commute Reduction, as well as side letters on the U-Pass and on Covid Prevention. We will update you as your BAT responds to these proposals and makes progress toward our first contract.
August 25 and 27, 2020 - 13th and 14th Sessions
Over two bargaining sessions this week, we reached tentative agreement (TA) on nearly a dozen articles!
We reached TA on our full Layoffs, Seniority, and Rehire article. Our Layoffs article improves transparency about both job openings and layoffs at IHME, guarantees that at least two employees facing layoffs will be interviewed for openings they’re qualified for, and places laid-off employees on a rehire list for two years. In addition, people on the rehire list can be hired into similar positions, not just the position from which they were laid off. Taken together, these layoff provisions create many more options around layoffs than what we had before we formed our union!
We also reached TA on Hours of Work and on Information on Grants and Proposals. Our Hours of Work article establishes a 40-hour workweek as the norm for full-time employees at IHME! This represents a significant victory for work/life balance, a pervasive issue at IHME and one of the major reasons why we organized our union in the first place. And our Information on Grants and Proposals article will ensure that we all have access to current, accurate information on the status of grant funding in order to avoid the kinds of confusion that resulted from IHME’s mixed messaging about the Big 5 grant.
As important as layoffs, work/life balance, and transparency are, those aren’t the only areas where we made progress this week. We reached TA on several more articles, including Inclement Weather, Leave for Reasons of Faith or Conscience, Miscellaneous Leave, Performance Evaluations, Personal Services, Resignation and Abandonment, and Tuition Exemption.
We are still working to reach TAs on such important issues as professional development, contracting work outside our bargaining unit, or wages. Our next bargaining dates are September 23, 28, and 30.
August 24 and 27, 2020 - LBD Impact Bargaining sessions
Two members of the Local Burden of Disease team participated in two bargaining sessions with UWLR and IHME, specifically focusing on the upcoming LBD layoffs. Since it is very unlikely that we will have our contract ratified by the time LBD union members are laid off, we were able to meet to reach agreements on how these layoffs would be handled in the absence of a ratified contract. (This type of bargaining, called impact bargaining, can also happen when a contract doesn't have language to handle a specific circumstance. For instance, SEIU went into impact bargaining with UW at the beginning of the COVID-19 to discuss pandemic driven furloughs and layoffs). We had very productive sessions and were able to win the following benefits for LBD employees facing layoffs this September:
a formal mechanism for managing excessive workloads resulting from LBD employees taking jobs outside IHME,
rehire rights in line with what we’ve bargained in our main Layoffs article,
health insurance through the month of October, and
a $1500 payout to LBD employees who get laid off.
August 13, 2020 - 12th Session
Our 12th virtual bargaining session with UWLR and IHME was productive! We tentatively agreed to four articles: Probation, Family and Medical Leave, Parental Leave, and Vacations.We're still working hard on bargaining for DEI, Holidays, Layoffs, and Grants.
August 5th, 2020 - 11th Session
On Tuesday, August 5, we had our eleventh virtual bargaining session with UW Labor Relations and IHME, and we got a lot done. However, the UW still has not conceded on many crucial issues, such as rehire options, DEI, or comp time. We also learned that UWLR just closed two other contracts, which has freed a lot of time for them. This means that there’s no reason they can’t move quickly with our negotiations--we need to keep organizing and supporting our BAT (Bargaining Team) to keep the UW accountable and moving!
The most important development on Tuesday was that the UW shared their latest counter proposal concerning layoffs. We are very glad to see that the UW has moved on a number of layoff provisions, including sharing notifications about open positions and impending layoffs. However, the UW is refusing to budge when it comes to rehiring qualified IHME’ers who have been laid off into open positions in the UW School of Medicine and the School of Public Health, the two areas of the UW where our expertise and experience are most relevant.
In addition, the UW and IHME responded to our DEI proposal, but they have not yet prepared a counter proposal of their own. IHME expressed concern about bargaining over DEI while the consulting firm Paradigm is under contract on DEI issues; we requested details concerning the goals, scope of work, and timeline for the Paradigm contract so that we can prepare a revised DEI proposal that allows Paradigm to carry out its work while addressing important aspects of DEI that fall outside Paradigm’s scope.
Other developments from Tuesday’s session include the following:
We reached tentative agreement with the UW on the Corrective Action, Privacy, Joint Labor-Management Committee, Union Activities, and Workplace Behavior articles.
We offered a counter proposal on Inclement Weather.
The UW offered new counter proposals on Employee Rights, Information on Grants and Proposals, and Performance Evaluations.
July 21, 2020 - 10th Session
On Tuesday, July 21, we had our tenth virtual bargaining session with the UW. At our most recent session, we shared counterproposals concerning Layoffs, Vacations, and Information on Grants and Proposals. In addition, the UW shared counter proposals on Affirmative Action; Union Activities, Rights, and Stewards; Joint Union Management Committees; and Privacy. Finally, we reached tentative agreements on the Washington Family Medical Leave program and on Shared Leave.
Layoffs: While we continue to make progress concerning how layoffs at IHME will be handled, we are continuing to fight for members’ rights to stay on rehire lists after they are laid off. The UW wants to limit us to twelve months on rehire lists, but we believe we deserve twenty-four months as well as continued access to professional development opportunities in order to stay current and competitive in our research fields. In addition, we are proposing better, clearer one-on-one communication with people facing layoffs to ensure that nobody is left in the dark about their own future at IHME.
Vacations: We continue to advocate for our right to take vacation leave in order to improve our work/life balance at IHME. The UW wants to grant broad authority to supervisors and managers in approving vacation leave. We are proposing that with the exception of limited blackout periods, during which vacation cannot be taken, employees have the right to schedule their own vacations and the responsibility of communicating with supervisors about vacation schedules.
Information on Grants and Proposals: We are working with the UW bargaining team to determine an appropriate scope of information about current and proposed grants. We recognize that grant funding is often incredibly complicated and acknowledge the need to share a manageable amount of information about grants. However, we also believe in transparency and in our right to accurate, timely information about the funding sources that pay our salaries. We deserve enough information to fully understand the factors that influence our job security in order to make informed decisions about our careers.
July 23, 2020 - 9th Session
In our ninth virtual Bargaining Session with UW Labor Relations and IHME Management on July 23, the Bargaining Team offered counter proposals to four contract articles: Sick Leave, Classification and Reclassification of Positions, Tuition Exemption, and Holidays. In addition, we reached a tentative agreement with the UW on our Sick Leave article. And perhaps most significantly, the UW finally responded to our Layoffs article, which we proposed more than two months ago!
Sick Leave: We have reached a tentative agreement on sick leave! We have crafted a process that will apply equitably and consistently across teams at IHME.
Classification and Reclassification of Positions: What happens if someone on your team vacates their position, and then you and your co-workers pick up the work they leave behind (and then nobody fills the position)? Or if, over the years, you’ve taken on more and more responsibilities in your role, yet haven’t received a raise? Job creep was a major motivator to organize, and our counter proposal establishes a fair process to deal with this widely felt concern.
Tuition Exemption: This is one of the most valuable benefits of working for the University of Washington, and it’s highlighted during job interviews for IHME positions. Under our counter proposal, taking advantage of this program means that class time will be counted as work hours.
Holidays: Christmas is the only religious holiday formally recognized by the University of Washington, but people who do not celebrate Christmas should have the option to work on that day and take their own holiday off. Our counter proposal is pushing for a process that affirms and formalizes this rational option at one of the world’s leading global health institutes.
Layoffs: We took action together, and the UW listened! As we mentioned above, UW Labor Relations and IHME Management responded to our Layoffs proposal! Thanks to all Union members who participated in our video action related to layoffs! While it is exciting that, after two months of delay, our actions moved the UW to finally respond, we still have a long way to go on this very important contract provision. We will continue bargaining hard for a fair layoff procedure, as this is of deep concern to so many of us, especially in LBD.
July 6, 2020 - 8th Session
Big news — The Bargaining Team has officially laid all of our Union contract elements on the bargaining table! In the eighth Bargaining Session with UW Labor Relations and IHME Management on July 6, the Bargaining Team put forth proposals for the final sections of our contract which include a memorandum of understanding on diversity, equity and inclusion, and articles on civic engagement, exit interviews, and last but certainly not least, compensation.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion MOU: The Bargaining Team put forth a proposal that defines the importance of, as well as our Union’s relationship to, the DEI committee. Significantly, we are proposing to create positions for three DEI stewards; these Union members would be fully trained as SEIU 925 stewards, but they would also have specializations in issues related to DEI. In addition, this MOU also calls for trainings for IHME Management and staff who participate in hiring committees, enhances the diversity of applicant pools, and creates additional sponsorship options for IHME affinity groups.
Civic Engagement: The Bargaining Team proposes that everyone in our Union ought to have eight hours of floating holiday pay so that we may participate in civic engagement activities of our choosing (volunteer work, voting day, etc.).
Exit Interviews: In an effort to better understand turnover, this article clearly defines our Union’s intention to formally hold conversations with parting employees who are vacating a position in our bargaining unit. Notably, we want exit interviews to be conducted by designated members of our Union and be counted as work time.
Compensation: Many of us feel “stuck” in our positions without a clear career path, struggling to understand how we will advance, earn raises, or be awarded salary increases by merit. The Bargaining Team laid down an initial salary proposal that includes larger salaries, clear expectations for raises, and crystal clear career tracks. The proposal details that people in positions without clear paths of advancement would now be eligible after two years of service to earn the addition of “senior” in their title, as well as a significant increase in salary. We’re also fighting for the Publication Officers to have a title change to “Scientific Writers.”
June 17, 2020 - 7th Session
On Wednesday, June 17 we had our seventh virtual bargaining session with UWLR and IHME:
Hiring, promotions, and transfers: It’s no secret that there’s high turnover at IHME (>20% last fiscal year), and our union engagement survey illuminated the fact that many of us don’t feel like there’s a clear or reliable future. The purpose of this article is to ensure that internal job applicants are always expedited in the hiring process, and that there’s a clear process for promotions. The bargaining proposed mandatory pay increase provisions for employees assigned extra job duties, as well as a system that would ensure a title change to “senior” after two years of service for those without the opportunity for further advancement.
New employees: Our union put forth a proposal that would allow representatives from our union to spend one-hour with union eligible new employees on their orientation day. This would allow union eligible employees to better understand what it’s like to work a union job. We also proposed formalizing a job shadowing program in order to accommodate the steep learning curve.
Performance evaluations: We want our union to be involved in shaping performance evaluations so that we completely understand what we’re expected to do at work. The bargaining team proposed provisions that would ensure employees are not evaluated based on metrics out of their control, and have protection from potential supervisor bias.
Management made their own proposals regarding probation, and walked us through via powerpoint presentation how compensation works within the UW system. The bargaining team plans to put forth their initial compensation proposal during the next bargaining session on July 6!
June 1, 2020 - 6th Session
On Monday, June 1st we had our sixth virtual bargaining session with UWLR and IHME.
Leave and holidays: Our union put forth a number of proposals, including extending laws on family and medical leave to apply after only six months of tenure, explicitly including mental health days as sick days, considering non-legal partners and cohabitants as family members for purposes of leave, and providing more flexibility around paid and unpaid religious holidays. We also made a proposal for a child care fund - a high priority from our member survey.
Union activity: It is vital that our union has protected channels for communication and activity at work. The bargaining team proposed provisions around union activities, stewards, and communication, and began discussing possibilities for an online “bulletin board.” We also discussed the Joint Union-Management Committee, an advisory forum between our union and the employer.
Professional development: We made proposals to streamline and standardize the current professional development process to make it fairer and less burdensome. The bargaining team also proposed formalizing innovation (10%) time and introducing job shadowing and paid professional leave after five years to encourage retention. Tuition exemption is a great benefit that is currently hard to access; we proposed introducing more flexibility in scheduling and time off.
Management made their own proposals regarding overtime, job classification/reclassification, and compensation. We also again requested that IHME share their existing progress on updated career pathways so that we can help further that work, as well as create an ongoing process for our involvement in the future.
May 6, 2020 - 5th Session
Our Bargaining Team met via Zoom with UW Labor Relations and IHME SMT for our fifth online bargaining session - our second all-day session - on May 6.
The most important proposal our Bargaining Team shared concerned layoffs at IHME. Based on feedback from conversations with LBD members and our recent town hall, our Bargaining Team crafted an innovative Layoff and Rehire article outlining a unique approach to handling layoffs. Our proposal attempts to strike a balance between considerations of seniority and experience at IHME, on the one hand, and the unique needs of individual teams at IHME as well as concerns for diversity and equity, on the other. In addition, our proposal also calls for increased job-seeking support for IHME employees facing layoff as well as improved transparency throughout all of IHME concerning grant funding status and the possibility of layoffs. We believe that in a time like this, especially, the UW should be investing in the workers who produce its world-class research, not imposing austerity cuts. Management acknowledged our “creative” approach to handling layoffs in a way that works for both employees and IHME as a whole, and we look forward to hearing their response.
In addition, we proposed articles concerning vacations and hours of work aiming to clarify procedures and policies at IHME, establish equity across teams, and restore a measure of work/life balance. Our Vacations article calls for clear communication in advance concerning “blackout” periods when employees on a given team will not be able to take vacation leave, and it places limits on managers’ and supervisors’ ability to deny or cancel vacations outside of those blackout periods. Moreover, our Hours of Work, Overtime, and Compensatory Time article sets an average of 40 hours as a standard workweek at IHME and outlines procedures for compensating excessive workloads with flextime and comp time in ways that will be consistent throughout IHME instead of being dependent on the practices and culture of this or that team. We want IHME and the UW to invest in their current employees and give everyone in our bargaining unit a fair opportunity to achieve better work/life balance so that we can all sustainably produce our best work.
Our Bargaining Team also tentatively agreed to accept the UW’s counterproposals concerning membership and dues, and civil/jury duty and bereavement leave. Further, our team also agreed to accept their proposal concerning management rights on condition that they also accept our proposal on employee rights.
For their part, management made an initial proposal concerning holidays, and they responded informally to a set of proposals concerning COVID-19 that we shared at our previous bargaining session. According to Labor Relations, UW president Ana Mari Cauce is working toward a university-wide policy on reopening the workplace; management’s intention is to wait for the president’s office to develop and release their reopen plan, and then to work with us and other campus unions to bargain over the impact of that plan. We will keep you updated as this situation develops.
Finally, both sides agreed to add two July dates to our bargaining schedule. This means that we are currently lined up to bargain on June 1, June 17, July 6, and July 13.
April 30, 2020 - 4th Session
On April 30, our Bargaining Team met with UW Labor Relations and members of SMT for our fourth bargaining session. During this long and productive Zoom conference, we presented a slate of new proposals focused on improving equity across race and gender at IHME, and keeping us all productive and healthy throughout this pandemic.
In our Affirmative Action article, we are asking the UW to provide us with an annual list tracking promotion velocity by race and gender at IHME so that we can work with IHME toward greater equity. In our Employee Facilities article, we proposed language to further protect all IHME employees’ access to facilities that fit their gender identity or gender expression.
Additionally, our Employee Facilities proposal also includes provisions for expanding access to telework arrangements and guaranteeing the equipment necessary to work remotely. Our Inclement Weather article also aims to enhance our work-from-home options. Most significantly, our Health and Safety proposal outlines a broad set of rights and protections to ensure that we all can stay healthy while still fulfilling our duties at IHME during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the event of any similar crisis in the future.
Going forward, it is clear from Ana Mari Cauce’s address to the whole UW on May 1 that the UW is looking at deep budget cuts across the board to try to offset the economic woes stemming from the pandemic. We believe that these cuts represent the worst possible path to recovery, and that austerity will only deepen and prolong the pain. It’s important that we encourage our leaders at all levels (university, state, and federal) to reject the easy answers of austerity and belt-tightening and instead invest in our jobs and communities as the healthiest path to a new and better normal. A strong contract for our union can be our first step to that better normal.
April 22, 2020 - 3rd Session
On Wednesday, April 22, we had our third virtual bargaining session with representatives from UW Labor Relations (UWLR) and IHME. UWLR is posting updates here. We are happy to report progress toward Tentative Agreements (TAs) on contract language concerning such issues as non-discrimination; leave related to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking; military leave; and work-related injury leave! A TA means that both a union and employer agree to include the items contained in the future contract proposal so that they can move on to other topics.
In addition, the UWLR agreed to provide us with updates on their progress in restructuring existing career pathways and conducting market analyses. It had previously been claimed that such ongoing efforts had been put on hold because of our union activities, but significantly, management acknowledged that those efforts had not stalled because of our union, and they agreed to set the record straight with IHME employees. Our BT expects to know SMT’s timeline for completing those efforts by our next bargaining session on Thursday, April 30.
Unfortunately, IHME SMT also informed us that they will not reconsider their decision to exclude members of our bargaining unit from this year’s promotion cycle. While we are deeply disappointed in this decision, our BT is committed to negotiating raises for everyone in our bargaining unit. The BT will continue to insist those raises be applied retroactively in order to offset the delay in receiving raises caused by IHME management’s decision.
April 16, 2020 - 2nd Session
Our incredible bargaining team (BT) had their second bargaining session with IHME SMT and UW Labor Relations (LR) last Thursday, April 16! During this session, the BT shared proposals for raises, promotions, and fully subsidized U-Passes. We are still waiting for official responses for these proposals. Last week, we let you know that the BT told UWLR at our first session that we expect IHME to observe past practices for raises and promotions instead of instituting an unnecessary freeze. On Thursday, members of UWLR and IHME SMT responded informally and indicated that they do not intend to change their position on their freeze and have not agreed to continue the past practice of including us in the promotion process. This is unacceptable, especially given the increased workload many of us have taken on the past few weeks.
Our next bargaining session will be this Wednesday, 4/22, so keep an eye out for more updates!
April 6, 2020 - 1st Session
On Monday, April 6, our Bargaining Team met with representatives from UW Labor Relations and IHME SMT over Zoom - the first of many virtual bargaining sessions to come! SEIU 925 president Karen Hart began the session by praising IHME workers and leadership for their crucial COVID-19 research. We outlined our top priorities in bargaining our contract: wages, professional development and advancement, and work/life balance. In addition, despite this being our very first bargaining session, we came prepared with a list of more than a dozen articles from 925’s UW Classified Staff contract that we proposed importing into our own contract. To conclude the meeting, Karen brought up two crucial points with Labor Relations and SMT:
The UW has a legal duty to bargain with us over the impact of layoffs. It is a violation of labor law for the UW and IHME SMT to unilaterally decree how layoffs and reassignments will be handled.
SMT continues to claim that raises and promotions are frozen until after we ratify our contract. Our union’s interpretation, on the contrary, is that freezing raises and promotions is in effect a change in ordinary procedure, a violation of “status quo,” and a retaliatory action. We expect the UW to respond at our next bargaining session.
March 23, 2020
Due to the concerns around COVID-19, our March bargaining sessions have been cancelled, and our first bargaining session is now scheduled for April 6. This may be pushed back if that seems like the responsible and safe thing to do, but right now we are operating under the assumption that we will begin bargaining then!
In order to make sure we are all on the same page when the Bargaining Team goes into the first session, they are hosting a virtual Town Hall in the evening on Monday, March 30th. Please save that date and come with any questions or concerns you might have! Members will be sent a zoom link so keep your eyes on your inboxes, but if you are a non-member, please request a link here!
February 22, 2020
On Saturday, February 22, 2020, the 8 elected members of the Bargaining Team (BT) and the self-elected members of the Contract Action Team (CAT) joined SEIU 925 staff for a training to kick-off preparations for bargaining! BT and CAT members reviewed the results of the Bargaining Survey. BT members began planning ideas for proposals around our members' top priorities according to the survey, while CAT members brainstormed and planned ideas for collective actions our union can take to support the BT.
Stay tuned for more in the next coming weeks as we prepare for bargaining!
Bargaining dates:
March 17
March 20
March 23
April 16
If you're still interested in getting involved and would like to join the CAT, please fill out this form!