United Faculty of Western Washington’s bargaining team is preparing for their upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement with Western’s administration. Although the start date for negotiations isn’t set yet, it is estimated to take place in late winter or early spring, according to UFWW President and political science professor Vicki Hsueh.
The 2023-2027 CBA will be reopened to negotiate a compensation increase for faculty at Western, Hsueh said.
In 2023, UFWW was able to negotiate a 5% compensation increase across the board for faculty, with a 4.5% increase in 2024.
Hsueh emphasized the importance of this cost-of-living compensation for faculty.
“Bellingham is really expensive – housing, childcare, gasoline, groceries. A lot of our faculty members move here, like students, from a different part of the country or the world, and have big startup costs,” Hsueh said. “Compensation was a big deal for us.”
Compensation is one of 28 sections in the CBA. Other examples are retirement, leaves of absence and intellectual property. When the CBA is reopened, UFWW’s bargaining team will be able to reopen two of these sections in addition to compensation, but the team has not yet made any decisions.
The workload section is one area of growing concern among faculty, though, according to Hsueh.
Recent workload increase may be due to a couple factors, one being Western’s 2024 strategic reorganization, which outlines plans to eliminate 55 positions in response to losing $18 million of the university’s operating budget.
Another area of interest is Western Academic Workers Union’s recent contract signed in May 2024.
“[It’s] a wonderful contract, and I'm very in favor of the fact that the educational student employees have unionized,” Hsueh said. But with the new contract, there’s “additional workload for faculty to work out, schedules to work out, the processes of orientation and training. None of those things are necessarily bad, but they add additional labor to the equation that had not been calculated in before.”
Along with compensation, Hsueh highlighted improvements to non-tenure track faculty contracts as a strength of the current CBA.
Upon promotion, non-tenure track faculty now receive three-year contracts, an increase from the previous two-year contracts. Additionally, the current CBA introduced senior instructor merit evaluations to recognize the efforts of long-standing, non-tenure track faculty.
Senior instructors – non-tenure track faculty who have taught for five academic years – are evaluated every six years, and if evaluations are satisfactory, they receive a 3% pay increase. This six-year cycle is intended to roughly mimic that of tenure-track faculty, who receive a pay increase every five years.
Sixteen senior instructors were contacted via email to comment on how the current CBA has affected them, but none responded.
According to Kara Gabriel, president of United Faculty of Central, Central Washington University's faculty union, is in a similar position to UFWW. Like UFWW, UFC plans to reopen their CBA in early 2025 to set the amounts for the 2025 and 2026 compensation increases.
“[UFC] is actually quite happy with the contract we currently have,” Gabriel said. “We think it’s a very strong contract.”
Gabriel cited improvements to the protection of non-tenure track faculty and improved parental leave policies as strengths of their current contract.
Like Bellingham, Ellensburg is an expensive place to live. Gabriel said Central has lost some faculty because they weren’t able to afford housing and childcare. Improvements to parental leave are one way to counteract the high childcare prices.
Gabriel, a professor herself, said one of the most rewarding parts of her job as UFC President is ensuring that faculty are able to continue teaching and working with students
"Knowing that all the work we're [UFC is] doing is so that all the other faculty can continue to do what we all love," Gabriel said. "Which is to work with students and to prepare them for the careers that we hope will help build this state to be better."
Milo Whitman (he/him) is a campus reporter for The Front and is planning to major in journalism and minor in film studies. He enjoys playing music, watching movies and sports. You can contact him at milowhitman.thefront@gmail.com.
