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The UW vs the Unions

AAUP cross postOne of the UW unions representing classified staff, the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE), has released a report on its labor relations with the University. I’m writing to share this report with interested UW AAUP members. It is attached as a PDF to this message, and can also be downloaded online here. It is a large document (276 total pages), although only about 70 of these pages comprise the actual report itself (pages 11-82). The remaining pages are mainly appendices enabling readers to verify the report’s calculations and other content.
This document is responsive to many claims made by the University’s Human Resources Department. Among other issues, it details challenges in our union’s relationships on four main areas. The first part of the report details problems that unionized employees face, based on which University management representative decides how to respond to a grievance, or workplace complaint. Unlike other state agencies, the UW only has two internal steps in union grievance procedures, compared to three internal steps at other higher education institutions. The absence of such a third step makes it difficult for official workplace complaints to be decided by management representatives outside a given University department, such as a disinterested upper-level executive official outside of a department where a given complaint originates. This has been an especially difficult problem in the Finance & Facilities (F2) Department.

The second part of the report details the challenging workplace environment faced by Seattle campus custodians, who are also employed in a division of the Finance & Facilities (F2) Department. Many faculty members are aware of the changes in custodial services on the main campus, especially since staff and students have had to dispose of their own recycling and waste in mini-max containers. What faculty may be less aware of however, is the fact that custodial staffing levels were decimated in the wake of post-Great Recession budget cuts, falling from a high of 289 front line custodians in 2009 to a low of 218 custodians in 2011, to approximately 236 custodians in 2013. At the same time custodial staff have lost between 53-71 budgeted positions, the average gross square feet (gsf) cleaned per custodian has increased over 26% from 32,083 gsf per FTE in 2008, to 40,731 gsf per FTE in 2013. Given the average size of a Seattle-area/King County home is only 1,899 square feet, individual custodians on the Seattle campus are cleaning more than 21 such “average” sized Seattle-area homes. Having experienced such severe budget cuts, the Finance & Facilities (F2) Departmental Budget Submission for 2015 (see this link) does not seek to restore its Custodial Services division’s budgeted staffing levels to at least an eight year average of 261 FTEs. While Finance & Facilities (F2) custodians have had to do more with less, this department’s management engages in overly punitive disciplinary practices, capturing 88% of our union’s custodial grievances despite employing only 37% of all 716 WFSE-represented UW custodians.

The third part of the report focuses on Unfair Labor Practices filed against the University of Washington by WFSE. From 2003-2012, our union filed 18 Unfair Labor Practices against the UW. The state agency that adjudicates Unfair Labor Practices — Washington State’s Public Employment Relations Commission — has affirmed 50% of these Unfair Labor Practice charges, and only denied 22%. During the same intervening nine year period, WFSE filed 12 Unfair Labor Practices combined against all the other four year higher education institution where our union represents classified staff. This translates to averages of 18 Unfair Labor Practices filed for the UW, compared to 2.4 charges per institution for WSU, Western, Eastern, Central and Evergreen.
Finally, the fourth and last section of the report addresses wage disparities between different unionized UW employees. University employees in the same job title, responsible for identical duties, earn less than other unionized employees due to a persistent wage gap that has not been corrected despite five cycles of bargaining since 2005. It would cost the UW an estimated $260,000 per year or $520,000 over two years to correct such wage disparities for over 500 unionized employees, which includes “loaded” costs of factoring in these workers’ fringe benefits.
As evidenced by this and other UW unions’ data/experiences, including the AFT’s International and English Language Program (ILEP) faculty members, there are problems within the University’s Human Resources Department and Labor Relations division. Such trends go against expected public beliefs that a state university like the UW should be a premier place to work, or in the words of the University, “an employer of choice.” Our union is in the midst of engaging both the Administration as well as other elected and community stakeholders about all of these issues, and we will keep interested faculty members of the AAUP informed about how any problem-solving processes develop. If you have any questions or other feedback, please feel free to email [email protected] or call me at (206) 412-2014.
Sincerely,

Rod Palmquist
Washington Federation of State Employees Local 1488

UW / UW Medical Center / Harborview Medical Center Classified Employees

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