Much of today’s afternoon session was spent reviewing UAW’s package proposal sent the previous night. The teams discussed the shared goal of equity focused economic improvements for the Contract, looking at those who currently reside at the lower ends of current scales and those who are impacted based on their campus location.
 
The UAW proposal maintains previous graduate assistant salary baseline, locality pay, education/ experience pay levels and an hourly rate increase of over 50% higher than the 2023 hourly rate. UAW continued to cite the MIT Living Wage Calculator as a tool for their salary asks. The living wage hourly rate for individual working full-time (2080 hours per year) is currently $15.60. State of Washington minimum wage is $15.74. The UAW proposed assistantship monthly salaries equate to nearly 60% over these MIT living wage amounts. WSU called this to the group’s attention and asked if the salary demands were based on a 50% 9-month appointment. The UAW characterized WSU inquiry as irrelevant.
 
Title IX – UAW accepted the language acknowledging WSU has specific requirements under Federal law related to handling Title IX issues and agreed to meet to discuss impacts of Department of Education Title IX expected revisions.
 
Summer Session – UAW removed the proposed workload subsection as the parties agreed on language in the Workload Article, the information is sufficiently the same.
 
Duration- UAW’s proposal mirrors WSU’s previously proposed duration of August 15, 2026.
 
Following the session, the parties reached tentative agreement on several articles including, Anti-discrimination and Harassment, Child and Dependent Care, Holidays, Layoffs, Sexual Harassment and Prevention Training, and Workload.

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