On Jan. 26, a 99% majority of the Washington State University Academic Student Employees voted to ratify the tentative agreement they reached with the WSU administration on Jan. 17.
The tentative agreement follows about 11 months of negotiations between the unionized WSU Coalition of Academic Student Employees and the WSU administration.
The Coalition of Academic Student Employees wanted to see an increase in pay, more affordable insurance, protections against harassment and discrimination, longer parental leave and tuition waivers including building fees among other issues.
Prior to the physical strike on Jan. 17, the WSU Coalition of Academic Student Employees sent out a notice about the WSU administration saying, “WSU Admin has directed faculty and staff to send out misleading emails about reporting strike participation. As we said in our demand to bargain a few days ago, we demand that WSU Admin retract their direction to the departments and faculties regarding requirements for changing ASEs’ work status and engage us in bargaining over this new rule related to reporting work time.”
Despite the University’s reluctance to negotiate on the issue of insurance, with claims of needing more time, the physical strike ended up being around two hours before WSU admin relented on the issue.
“The WSU negotiation team said that they just couldn’t move on any of the issues and that they needed more time, and the students were being unreasonable,” said Paul Panipinto, a fifth year PhD candidate in the pharmaceutical sciences department. “I guess the time that they needed was that two hours because they had an offer pretty quick.”
Though they reached an agreement, there were compromises on both sides.
“I didn’t get everything I was hoping for, but I think that’s kind of the nature of compromise,” said Panipinto. “I would have liked to see a little higher wages. Even with the increase that they gave us, we’re below the livable wage in Spokane and I would have liked to see more traction on healthcare. We didn’t get to where I wanted to be, but it’s so much better than where it was that it’s hard to say no.”
The WSU Coalition of Academic Student Employees unionized with the UAW in Nov. 2022. After unionizing, contract negotiations with the university began in Feb. 2023, and within a year they had reached an agreement.
Washington State University is among the most recent of many universities to form an Academic Student Employee union. There are currently around 156 GSE unions nationwide, with the majority being public universities. Currently, no Idaho universities have a unionized academic or graduate student employee organization.
ASE unions can improve working conditions and living conditions more broadly. Additionally, union negotiations result in formal and easy-to-find contracts which specifically lay out benefits and expectations for both parties and provide clear opportunities for recourse in case of a breach of contract.
Georgia Swanson can be reached at [email protected]