AFT Washington is a state federation of more than 40 locals representing thousands of education workers, including Head Start educators, charter school teachers, preK-12 classified workers in roles including bus drivers, nutrition workers, paraeducators, and more, K-12 teachers, and faculty & staff at 25 community and technical colleges, and faculty at five four-year colleges and universities.
The 2026 session is a non-budget session.
PreK-12
• Committee Study Session on SRP work: In the last several electoral cycles, many long-time legislators have retired or left office. The coalition of unions seeking improvement in SRP wages, which includes WEA, SEIU 925, PSE, and Teamsters, seeks to hold a study session with the House Education Committee and the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee to ensure that legislators are familiar with the scope of SRP members’ work and the importance of their jobs in our preK-12 education system.
• School-Related Personnel Salary advocacy: The Legislature is strongly signaling that bills with a fiscal impact will receive very strong scrutiny with the intent to avoid adding to the state’s spending obligations. However, we will take opportunities to raise the issue of SRP salaries to legislators, relevant committees, and state agencies; we know that it is valuable to keep a conversation alive in preparation for the next budget session.
Higher Education
• Fixing the WEIA Funding Proviso and Other Budget Provisos: In the 2025 legislative session, changes were made to the WEIA funding proviso that we feel dilute its impact for education. Particularly in the climate of federal budget cuts and the state’s ongoing revenue shortfall, we want to tighten the language back up and ensure that the WEIA funds education. In addition, it has come to our attention that there were other provisos removed; we will advocate for the return of education-related provisos throughout the budget.
• Committee Study Session on Professional Exempt Staff and Contingent Faculty: Due to changes in committee leadership, AFT Washington and WEA are seeking a study session with the House Postsecondary Education & Workforce and Senate Higher Education & Workforce Development Committees to advise legislators on the roles that professional exempt staff and contingent faculty play in our schools, with particular emphasis on their role in student success and education. We anticipate this will be beneficial for the 2027 session and our compensation advocacy in that session.
• Contingent Faculty Pay Equity: The Legislature defined pay equity for contingent faculty as 85% of comparable tenured faculty compensation, and directed the SBCTC to develop a plan to implement this policy fully by 2027. We will be advocating in the session for sustained, permanent funding to achieve the goal of pay equity, and keep contingent faculty pay at 85% as faculty salaries improve over time.
• Developments In AI: Two likely legislative developments regarding the use of artificial intelligence have our support. The first is that the use of AI by employers must be subject to bargaining; the second is ensuring that the state of Washington is able to regulate statewide official use of AI regardless of federal legislative priorities. We will support legislative efforts in both arenas.
• CTC Board of Trustees Reform: AFT Washington has advocated previously for inclusion of a labor representative on the Boards of Trustees for the Community Colleges; the Technical Colleges are already required to have labor representation on their Boards. We will also support work to reform service terms and appointments if such are raised to the Legislature.
Retirees
• Retiree COLA: For five out of the last seven sessions, the Legislature has provided a COLA for TRS/PERS Plan 1 Retirees. A permanent COLA and a one-time COLA have both come up in this session. We will advocate for them that our oldest retirees have some guarantee of pension increases against inflation.
Progressive Revenue
AFT Washington is active in the Balance Our Tax Code progressive revenue coalition. We will support the legislation proposed by BOTC and its revenue partners, as well as the conversation at all levels regarding a “millionaire’s tax” and other progressive revenue mechanisms and are prepared to both defend against cuts and bring education-specific cuts to the coalition’s attention to defend against.
Communities For Our Colleges
We anticipate that there will be legislative proposals that support C4C’s policy goals that we will support as they are introduced.
Labor
AFT Washington is an active participant in the United Labor Lobby and we will work in solidarity with our union siblings to pass legislation that benefits our members and workers generally as we fight legislation with harmful impacts on working people.
Social Justice
We will advocate, for or against, bills of importance to our community partners, including the Racial Equity Team, Economic Opportunity Institute, Faith Action Network, PSARA, and others that create equity and social justice for Washingtonians.
Healthcare for All
We continue our participation on the steering committee of the Healthcare Is a Human Right coalition and will continue to support legislation that increases access to high quality healthcare and moves us toward universal healthcare for all.