The Pulse

As 2023 wraps up I’m thinking about our achievements alongside our challenges; we’ve seen significant union organizing followed by big wins across the country and here at home. Last year, we saw a Supreme Court decision take away women’s rights to bodily autonomy and healthcare, and we saw voters in several states push back hard and protect those rights. We saw re-energized UAW workers demand their employers restore concessions made in earlier years and get creative with Stand Up strikes, resulting in winning far more at the table than they otherwise would have. Academics at Temple, Rutgers, University of Chicago and elsewhere have walked out to get what they need; right now, contingent faculty at Columbia College in Chicago are walking the line for the 49^th day, the longest strike of contingent faculty ever! PreK-12 staff and teachers have also stood firm for better wages, smaller class sizes and more support staff. The message of Workers is loud and clear: Enough is Enough! And it’s working.

No letter from Karen this month – we’re hard at work on prepping for the legislative session, getting our resolution work well underway, and digging into our coalition work! Look for a new letter next month.

Fall has clearly arrived, and our union has reached the “school-year pace” at the local, state, and national levels. Many of you are in bargaining or preparing to go to the table, new local leaders are in the process of acclimating to new responsibilities and demands, our Advocacy Team and Leg Affairs Committee are working together to finalize our agenda for the 2024 session, and AFT is out front on strengthening the working conditions that allow us to thrive. Most recently you may have seen President Weingarten’s New York Times opinion piece regarding AI, which sheds light on the multi-pronged challenges and opportunities AI offers. The presence of AI has escalated rapidly in the last year, and it is essential that the voices of educators and union leaders – that is, you – are prominent as we navigate this terrain.

Happy Post-Election Day! I feel relieved and perhaps even a little hopeful with the election results. Our fight for economic, racial, and social justice will continue in Washington State with a likely Senate pick-up and larger House majority, creating conditions allowing us to push back against the austerity messaging we’re encountering in our preparation for the legislative session. I’m even more optimistic about our non-budget legislative agenda. Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day – Senator Patty Murray has been a champion for veterans, consistently calling for expanding services and support throughout her tenure and recently helping pass the PACT Act which provides expanded support for veterans harmed by toxic burn pits. Illness associated with these burn pits are presumed to be caused by military-related exposure. Veteran’s Day gives us the opportunity to think about how we can translate statements of support to military personnel and veterans to actual support.

Hard to believe we’re approaching the 3-year anniversary of the pandemic shutdown, yet here we are. I’m pleased to announce that over the break we filed a representation petition with PERC to represent professional/exempt staff at Walla Walla Community College. The next step is to come to agreement with management and PERC on which positions will be in the unit and then get to the bargaining table. As you read through this Pulse, you’ll see that AFT Washington Board member and faculty at Pierce College Jacqui Cain is working to organize professional staff at other colleges – if you know of colleagues at the CTCs who might be interested, Jacqui would welcome a conversation with them, so please reach out.

First, I want to wish you and yours a peaceful and enjoyable holiday season. The many holidays celebrated at this time of year offer respite, reflection, relation and so much more, even while creating the potential added stress. Please do take care and seek the best these last weeks of 2022 have to offer.

Looking ahead into 2023, the AFT Washington Executive Board plans to offer several Race and Labor workshops in January and February, both in person and virtually. Board members Gillian Reese (Local 461), Peter Pihos (Local 2084), and David Ortiz (Local 6191) will be reaching out to local presidents by region to arrange workshops for local leaders. Our hope is that your local leadership will participate as a team and then host a workshop for your membership in Spring or Summer. This workshop is an opportunity to deepen understanding of systemic racism within our union and our workplaces and to strengthen our commitment to disrupting it constructively.

I feel relieved and perhaps even a little hopeful with the election results. Our fight for economic, racial, and social justice will continue in Washington State with a likely Senate pick-up and larger House majority, creating conditions allowing us to push back against the austerity messaging we’re encountering in our preparation for the legislative session. I’m even more optimistic about our non-budget legislative agenda.

Here we are, starting another school year in the context of COVID. Who thought we would still be at the bargaining table negotiating working conditions impacted by the pandemic? Many of you have started your second year of in-person work, while others continue to work mostly remotely. The challenge of meeting workers’ needs while also providing quality education, healthy buildings, and adequate support services is real, even while it looks different in different settings. As I wrote early in the pandemic, the weaknesses in our systems – the digital grand canyon, food insecurity, staff shortages, lack of respect on the job, unaffordable childcare and healthcare – are still illuminated, and some efforts have been made to address them. The digital grand canyon was narrowed and meals at school were available to all. Many of our locals fought for and won meaningful raises – most recently, AFT Kent had a 95% strike authorization vote, resulting in more competitive wages without actually striking!

Does anyone remember what we were focused on in 2018? The first sentence of my June Pulse letter was “Every Monday morning I wake up and think, “oh shoot…did I sleep through the announcement of the Janus decision???” If the Freedom Foundation’s slew of public information requests, our member recommitment campaign, or the looming SCOTUS decision don’t spring immediately to mind, let me refresh your memory. The Janus decision was the decision by SCOTUS to end agency fee, meaning that bargaining unit members could reap the benefits of representation but were not required to contribute fees to the cause. The Freedom Foundation and other funders of the lawsuit hoped that the labor movement would die off when starved of members and revenue, leaving workers at the mercy of employers, with no voice or power in their jobs.

As is always the case, there is a lot going on. I’m happy to report that our two bills, ESSB 5847 (Public Service Loan Forgiveness) and SB 5539 (healthcare funding for Head Start members) are headed to the Governor’s desk and we have every reason to trust that they’ll be signed. These bills represent significant gains for our members; our Advocacy Team worked smart and hard to get them passed. I especially want to mention HyeEun Park and Anna-Marie Magdalena, brand new members of the team, who were unrelenting in our push for the win. The strength of our relationships is core to a successful legislative session, and this year we made the most of those relationships. We tapped into our labor siblings, partnered with the employer of our Head Start members, co-conspired with the Student Borrower Protection Center and AFT staff, and engaged our membership to speak to legislators and in hearings. We turned over every stone we could find to win in Olympia.