Today is 4/1/21, so we’re celebrating UAW 4121 style by raving about our passion for one-to-one organizing and kicking off a month of celebration! Throughout April, we’ll be featuring past & present members, sharing our history, & more!
Members originally chose the Local number 4121 to emphasize that we are *For One-To-One* organizing ➡️ by engaging with fellow workers in 1-on-1 convos, we can empower each other, grow community & relationships, and build power for structural change 💪
This doesn’t happen on its own!! Over the past 20 years, 1000s of Academic Student Employees and Postdocs have come together through our union to build a more equitable UW.
Today, we’re starting out with a retrospective of how we got here! Stay tuned for blasts from the past, complete with ✨vintage photos ✨ like this one.
And we're looking forward to hearing and sharing even more 4/1/21 stories today and throughout April! Help us celebrate by sharing your stories using the hashtag #4121organizing 🥳🥰😘
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STORY TIME: How did we win our union through #4121organizing? 🧵
In 1999, inspired by academic student worker organizing around the country (including at University of California, where nearly 10,000 ASEs formed @uaw2865!), ASEs at UW started organizing for our own union so we could have a collective voice for improving conditions here.
By Fall 2000, we demonstrated supermajority support for our union TWICE among all Teaching Assistants, Readers, Graders, and Tutors. But UW admin refused to recognize our union, so we decided to strike at the end of Fall Quarter. Our yes vote? Manually tallied!
Happy first day of bargaining! Here are the proposals we brought to the table, built on the bargaining survey and the initial bargaining demands over the past few months. A thread🧵
⚖ EPIC and Equity Teams:
- Expand the EPIC sexual harassment prevention program
- Establish Peer Equity Teams to address equity and build community and provide support at the departmental level
- Funds to support international and undocumented students
👩🎓 Mentorship:
- Establish the right to an Individual Development Plan
- Establish the right to secondary mentors
- Provide training for supervisors on best mentorship practices