UW Wants You to Do More With Less

Stand Up to UW: Walkout with Washington on August 31

WFSE workers all over Washington are walking out to call for fair contracts. As we struggle to make ends meet in the communities we serve in a state where expenses balloon and our wages stagnate, management across the state is trying to avoid fair compensation for our workers.

We won’t let them look away from our demands.

Our 2024 walkouts led to management miraculously finding money for compensation, a tangible difference from our actions. That’s why we’re walking out again, alongside union coalition partners and community supporters.

• UW Main Campus Walkout - RSVP Here
• UW Montlake Medical Center Walkout - RSVP Here
• UW South Lake Union Campus Walkout - RSVP Here
• Harborview Medical Center Walkout - RSVP Here
• UW Bothell Campus Walkout - RSVP Here
• UW Tacoma Medical Center Campus - RSVP Here

What's a walkout? Why are we doing it? Learn more here.

Your contract bargaining team is aggressively pushing for the changes you deserve in your contract, but University management appears to be stalling.

They regularly show up unprepared, asking us common-sense questions that eat up the precious time we have to work on bettering your pay, time off, and working conditions.

We’re all aware that the state budget is not in good shape, and that many of the hundreds of buildings that make up UW’s sprawling campuses and hospitals need serious maintenance.

Yet at our negotiations session on August 7, management continued to defend their practice of outsourcing work to contractors who are both expensive and lack familiarity with grounds and systems they’re hired to work on.

With competitive pay, UW will be able to maintain its infrastructure with skilled WFSE members and tackle repairs before they result in costly that disrupt students and patients.

While management has been more cooperative in our last few sessions, they are NOT showing up with the same dedication as we are to negotiate this contract.

We are working to win the best contract for you, the workers who make UW the world-class university management loves to brag about, but management is taking their time to actually negotiate issues within our contract.

UW Wants to Rely on AI

Management has repeatedly stated that they want to rely on AI for essential tasks, even for performance reviews.

One of the most egregious examples is the desire to rely on AI to edit performance reviews. While we do not know if this is the case, it seems that management is relying more and more on LLMs to help them do their work managing workers, by writing emails and other communications to workers. This is a problem because of AI’s tendency to “hallucinate,” creating false information as part of its prediction model rooted in biases.

It seems that management cares more about hoarding money than how reckless use of AI could impact workers.

We know you’re tired of feeling like you’re a permanent temp, like your time working for UW doesn’t mean anything. We know you need better staffing to do your work and better pay and benefits for you and your family.

Your team understands that—but UW doesn’t.

Make a Difference: Show Up and Tell Your Story

We are the workers who keep UW’s campuses running. We must show up at events to show management that WFSE-represented workers make up a significant portion of the vital workforce at UW, reminding them who they’re harming when they refuse us a fair contract.

Upcoming events:

Sept. 9, 2 PM: UW Board of Regents Picket

Sept. 13, 11 AM: Back2School Splash Local 3488 Family Picnic

Your story matters. Thank you to everyone who has shared your stories with us so far; they truly make an impact on the way our work is seen by management. If you haven’t shared your story yet, please take a few minutes to tell us why your work matters and what a fair contract would mean to you.