January 21, 2022
Support for our union is continuing to grow following the filing of our union petition on December 20, 2021. More Research Scientists/Engineers (RSEs) are signing cards to build our majority support. We got great coverage in The Stranger and The Stand (State Labor Council newsletter) and are hearing good feedback following our public announcement. In the coming week or so we expect to hear that UW administration has submitted a list of bargaining unit employees to PERC (Public Employment Relations Commission – the Washington state labor board who oversees our certification process) so that our cards can be counted to ensure that we’ve crossed the initial legal threshold for certification. Then we will see if UW Admin will raise objections to the unit; we believe any issues should be minor and hope UW will move quickly through the next phase of the process so we can complete certification and start bargaining.
While UW is assembling their list to send PERC, they have sent notices to departments and hiring units about various legal questions arising from the filing of our petition. One pertains to whether any research scientists fit certain criteria of supervisory or managerial roles that would exclude them from the bargaining unit. If you’ve received any kind of communication regarding this, or you have heard information about how these questions are being interpreted (or misinterpreted) please let us know. We want to prevent any and all delays that come up so it will be really helpful to see what communication is going out to UW research scientists.
UW also notified departments and units about the existence of the “dynamic status quo” period following the filing of our petition. This is a legal framework to ensure that workers can’t be penalized or rewarded for forming a union, and prohibits the employer from making changes to terms and conditions that they hadn’t regularly made or approved before the petition was filed. Note that this is not the same as a freeze (UW is legally obligated to continue existing practices) and a quick certification period will ensure that few if any issues are likely to arise. However, if you hear of any situation where you believe incorrect decisions are being made and your conditions are being impacted, please let us know immediately so we can help ensure the status quo legal standard is being correctly interpreted and applied.
UW also emailed a notice of the representation petition, and indicated to some of us that we had not been included based on our job codes. The petition did in fact include all Research Scientists in A-4 titles, although some numeric job codes associated with overtime-exempt and non-exempt titles are not listed on the UW website and so were not itemized on the petition, as such the email does not change the substance of the petition. Please reach out if you have any questions regarding these emails.
In the meantime, please continue to talk to your colleagues about this exciting campaign, and be sure to fill out our more extensive bargaining survey so that we can be prepared for bargaining! Don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.
In solidarity,
The UW Researchers United Organizing Committee