Advocate Online

On the Road
with Valerie Wilk

Over the past year, I have been making regular trips to the “other Washington” to help with an exciting organizing effort.

The United Faculty of Washington State (UFWS) is a project of the NEA, Washington Education Association, Washington Federation of Teachers, and the American Federation of Teachers to help faculty unionize in the state’s public universities.

UFWS grew out of the successful WEA/WFT collaboration to get a law passed last year that granted collective bargaining rights to the faculty at the state’s four-year institutions. Now organizing committees of faculty leaders are meeting with their colleagues and talking about why they need a union on their campus.

Faculty at Central Washington University (CWU) are the first to petition the Labor Board under the new law for union representation.

Chapter president Susan Donahoe recalls that 10 years ago an overwhelming majority of CWU faculty voted to unionize, but the administration refused to recognize the union. Winning this new election, which could come soon, means the university must bargain with its faculty.

CWU psychology professor Terry DeVietti cites the state fiscal crisis as one reason faculty need a legally binding union contract. Notes DeVietti, “With United Faculty, we can work with the administration to equitably solve the problems that face our university.”

Adjunct professor and chapter vice president Lila Harper notes that without union clout higher ed will be an easy target for funding cuts. “Collective bargaining is a necessary first step toward strengthening the faculty’s voice,” she notes.

Check out UFWS’s new Web site at www.ufws.org.

— Valerie Wilk coordinates NEA higher ed activities.