Dear members,

Welcome back to the university! We hope you had a restful break and that the year has started off well, despite the cold weather.

As you know, 2024 will be an important year for us at Wayne as we bargain together for a new contract. Your Bargaining Team has continued its weekly meetings, pored over our survey results, and is planning multiple ways of connecting and engaging with you over the next few months. As we get ready for our first meetings with Administration, we wanted to share with you some updates:

On January 25th, WAU filed our Intent to Bargain paperwork with the relevant agencies including University administration. At the request of the Administration, we have agreed to start bargaining on Tuesday March 5th – just over 5 weeks from now. The contract expires June 30th, so it is our fervent hope to finish in a timely manner.

We have organized two listening sessions (zoom) specifically for faculty and academic staff from the School of Medicine. While we have had some meetings there in individual departments, these sessions will be open to everyone from the SOM. If you are in SOM, please mark your calendars for Monday February 12th at 5pm and Thursday February 15th at 6pm. Details will follow nearer the time as will information on upcoming meetings across the University.

As a Team, we have focused, among other issues, on salaries, cost of living adjustments and flexible work arrangements. We also have a number of subcommittees working diligently on more specific concerns. The subcommittee on “Bargaining for the Common Good” has some novel ideas developed for helping students with emergency housing, while the subcommittee evaluating the selective salary/merit review for faculty and academic staff has developed some initial ideas on how to improve the cumbersome (and very unpopular) process. Your Bargaining Team, in their weekly sessions, has started working on contract language.

We will give you updates on all these and more at our general membership meeting on Feb 14th from 12-1 pm.

In Solidarity,

Your Bargaining Team