Editors Note: This article has been edited since publication to include factual information regarding WAWU contracts.
Western Academic Workers United is voting to establish its inaugural executive board. All 20 positions on the board will hold equal powers of administration, which include president, vice president, sergeant at arms and recording secretary, among others.
The voting period will last from Oct. 24 to Oct. 27. Voting for contested positions will be held via a secret ballot, with a potential runoff period scheduled for Oct. 28 to Nov. 3, according to the union’s website. Term limits for board members will last for three years.
The election marks a new beginning for the union after its educational student employees went on a two-day strike and won a contract in May 2024 — largely organized and led by its formerly active bargaining committee.
Ian Schaefer Lorenz, Jude Ziliak and Lexy Aydelotte address a crowd on the steps of Old Main on May 1, 2024, in Bellingham, Wash. The union is electing an executive board for the first time. From left to right: Ian Schaefer Lorenz, Jude Ziliak and Lexy Aydelotte. // Photo by Austin Wright
WAWU student workers raise picket signs and chant during a rally in Red Square on May 1, 2024, in Bellingham, Wash. The union is electing an executive board for the first time. // Photo by Austin Wright
Members are encouraged to run regardless of experience or skill. WAWU presidential candidate and Research Assistant Jules Robichaux was first drawn to campaigning for union leadership this fall after participating in the strike.
“I saw a lot of people my age who really love their jobs and really cared about their position in our community as students. Seeing all of that was genuinely infectious,” Robichaux said.
Among the top priorities of the executive board is to authorize the recognition of nearly 1,400 operational student employees on WWU’s campus. State Bill 5895 would have afforded OSEs the right to collectively bargain, but as reported by The Front, this bill was killed during a 2024 legislative session.
“Making sure that the other half of the student workers on campus have bargaining rights…is the best way to ensure that student worker concerns are heard,” said former WAWU bargaining committee member Erin Magarro. “It’s really telling when half of the students on campus have a contract to fall back on and the other half do not have basic bargaining rights.”
United Faculty of Western Washington Vice President Dr. Theresa Warburton said that for a union in its infancy, indicators of success can look like people having security and clear expectations with their jobs.
“It’s one of the things that’s difficult with unions that represent students. Students are in this sort of complicated category of people who work for the university and also are being provided a service by the university,” Warburton said. “It’s one of the reasons WAWU had to fight so hard and go get recognized the way that they did.”
WAWU undergraduate hourly ESE positions, organized into three job levels, won an hourly pay increase of up to 27.76%. This pay raise will increase across the board on Jan. 1, 2025, by up to 5.76% — and up to 3.59% in 2026.
Additionally, the collective bargaining agreement implemented notable anti-discrimination and harassment measures, paid trainings and bereavement leave.
All positions will share equal levels of power because according to Robichaux, “it already represents the way we have been doing everything up until this point…our union has always been about people working together; no one person makes decisions that affect other people.”
Outside of campus, the student union has engaged in community advocacy work from canvassing in support of a renting junk fees ordinance to protecting a Bellingham permanent supportive housing shelter 22 North after a motion to defund the facility was put forward by Bellingham city councilmember Ben Elenbaas. WAWU voiced its concern during public comment at city council meetings.
Mattie Horne, a second-year graduate student and WAWU financial secretary candidate, says she met some of her best friends through the union and enjoys being a part of what she calls a “community of care” that transcends beyond her own immediate union membership.
“There was somebody involved with one of the other unions who was pregnant and doesn’t have a whole lot of family support out here, so a bunch of us got together and cooked — we spent a whole day cooking for her and making meal prep, stuff like that. You know, being involved in a community that cares about each other; it was really great,” Horne said.
According to Robichaux, the union has eyes on something larger than just a contract in the next several years.
“I’m very happy to be wrong 85% of the time, if I’m right 15% of the time, because if you’re working with other intelligent, very motivated people…well then we have a lot of fantastic ideas together,” Robichaux said. “We get to employ them, together. Not as ‘x’ person representing ‘y’ person, but as student workers representing student workers.”
Austin Wright (he/him) is a campus news reporter for The Front this quarter. He is a third-year journalism/news ed major. When he’s not reporting, you can find him playing ultimate frisbee, watching soccer or hiking. You can reach him at austinwright.thefront@gmail.com.
