Dear UFE Members, First, thanks for your hard work this year in these pandemic times. And thanks for your membership in the UFE. If you know any colleague who wants to join the UFE, please direct them to the website for an application form. The UFE will be bargaining a FALL Memorandum of Understanding on campus safety. With a return to the possibility of in-person instruction in the fall, we continue to be vigilant on safety and are committed to bargaining safety around issues such as campus vaccinations and testing, masks and hygiene, and social distancing. We will also soon beginRead More
You can read a detailed timeline of the union’s history through 2013 on the UFE website. This series features select highlights! In 2002, “enabling legislation” was passed in Washington State, a new statute that granted collective bargaining rights to faculty at the state’s public 4-year institutions of higher education (RCW 41.76). The statute provides that there can be only one bargaining unit at each of the 4-year institutions. This led the Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) to take the position that all individuals who hold faculty status must be in the bargaining unit. After the enabling legislationRead More
Every workplace has its salty and its sweet. If the sweetness of an academic job comes from accompanying students in the excitement and rigors of study, the saltiness comes from the challenges of renewing and transforming education writ large and the UFE plays an important role in that at Evergreen. I started teaching at the college in 2012 and I’ve been a union steward for nearly as long. From the start I found UFE forums to be convivial learning experiences. A union meeting is like a partial x-ray of an organization: it shows you with a degree of objectivityRead More
Dear colleagues, My post as UFE Chair began in June of 2020 with intense negotiations around budget issues and faculty furlough, as well as safety and workload conditions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Now we are at the end of Winter Quarter 2021, and looking back over the last year, I wish I could say that things have mellowed out. Alas, the realities of living and teaching during a global pandemic are still with us, and likely will be for some time to come. To where can we turn for hope? My three year old likes to make listsRead More
Shawn Hazboun will be on parental leave in spring quarter (congratulations Shawn!); Grace Huerta is stepping in to serve as interim UFE Chair during this time. Spring quarter meetings: save the date! Weds. April 21, 1:30-3pm – Special Forum on the Contract (Members only) Weds. April 28, 1:30-3pm – Special Forum on the Contract (All faculty) Thurs. May 6, 5-6pm – Members Meeting UFE ratifies two MOUs (access all contract documents on the UFE website) The Safety MOU updates an earlier MOU regarding COVID safety, extending many of those provisions through summer 2021. The Title IX MOU alignsRead More
On Monday, August 10, the UFE membership voted in favor of ratifying both the furlough and the safety MOUs. Voter turnout was one of our highest in UFE history – 77% of our members voted on these two MOUs. Of those who voted, 93% voted in favor of the furlough MOU, and 100% voted in favor of the safety MOU. The furlough MOU guarantees there will be no faculty layoffs in the 2020-21 academic year, and that the College will not declare financial exigency or financial emergency. All full-time faculty, including full time regular and adjunct faculty, Library Faculty,Read More
May 29, 2020 The UFE membership overwhelmingly voted on May 15 to endorse the following 2020-22 slate of candidates for the UFE leadership team. Congratulations to Chair, Shawn Hazboun; Vice-Chair, Laurie Meeker; Communications Coordinator, Julie Russo; Treasurer, Marla Elliott; Stewards Coordinator, Leslie Flemmer; At-Large Members, Judith Gabriele and Sandy Yannone. Members elected to the Stewards Council include: Steve Blakeslee, and Suzanne Simons. Thank you everyone for your service! UFE Election Committee: Brad Procter, Michael Vavrus & Grace Huerta _________________ May 18, 2020–COVID-19 Working Conditions & Research Greetings UFE members. We have received emails from UFE colleagues regarding requests fromRead More
In a press conference today, Friday March 13, Governor Jay Inslee announced restrictions to educational activities on college campuses related to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The Governor indicated that higher ed institutions will be restrict in-person instruction from Tuesday March 17 through Friday April 24. The first possible day back will be Monday April 27, the beginning of week 5 in the Evergreen academic calendar. You can watch this section of the Governor’s press conference here, (2:52 through 3:57). The transcript follows: “Second, we are also going to restrict activity at all statewide public and private universities, colleges, communityRead More
