WEA members and allies united for freedom to negotiate fair pay for faculty
Email the Senate in support of faculty bargaining rights!
On Presidents’ Day, more than 60 WEA community and technical college faculty members and their supporters lobbied legislators for the freedom to negotiate fair wages.
“I’m here to support equal bargaining rights for faculty,” said Jennifer Jones, who teaches geography and global studies at Highline College. “It’s a long time coming. Low salaries make it harder to recruit full-time and adjunct faculty. We’ve lost people to California – they received huge increases compared to what they made in Washington state.”
WEA President Kim Mead said community and technical college faculty are the only public education employees who are currently prohibited from negotiating competitive pay using local funding.
With a pro-worker majority in the Legislature, this could be the year that changes.
By a bipartisan vote of 57-41, the state House recently approved equal bargaining legislation. Now the legislation, Engrossed House Bill 1237, is in the Senate.
Ignoring that strong bipartisan support, some college administrators and anti-worker political groups like the Freedom Foundation are lobbying against the freedom to negotiate fair salaries.
“Each year since 2013, I’ve joined college administrators in opposing this legislation,” an FF lobbyist recently blogged.
Mari Brunson teaches Japanese at Bellevue College and said such opposition to the bill was misguided.
“It’s just not right,” Brunson said.
Beth Thew, a trustee at the Community Colleges of Spokane, said she supports EHB 1237 and urged faculty to stand together.
“You are the backbone of the colleges,” she told WEA members. “You do have support out there.
“Your community is behind you.”
