The Wellesley non-tenure track faculty union, known as the Wellesley Organized Academic Workers (WOAW), has started a strike authorization vote after bargaining with Wellesley College in May 2024.
Eligible voters in this election include instructors, lecturers and Mellon postdoctoral fellows who are currently employed by Wellesley College. If the vote passes with a two-thirds majority, the union’s bargaining committee is authorized to call for a strike if necessary.
According to WOAW, a “yes” vote in the Strike Authorization Vote is an opportunity to “declare forcefully that unless [the College] make[s] significant progress towards a fair contract, they can expect a strike to follow.”
The call for the Strike Authorization Vote from WOAW is coming after claims that the College has stalled on major core-bargaining issues.
“After 19 bargaining sessions and over 65 hours of face-to-face negotiations, we have not made sufficient progress on our key priorities, including compensation, workload, job security, titles, and prohibitions against discrimination and harassment,” wrote Erin Battat, a senior lecturer in the Writing Program, in an email statement to The News.
WOAW and the College have reached 15 tentative agreements out of 50 proposals, including health and safety, intellectual property, and workplace and materials.
However, the College described the vote as “premature.” In an email sent to faculty and staff on Feb. 14 from Provost Courtney Coile and Chief Human Resources Officer Carolyn Slaboden, they wrote, “It is hard to understand why the union would take this step toward bringing disruption to our students when negotiations are ongoing and in no way at an impasse.”
The main bargaining issues that the College and the Union went back and forth between in their communications are compensation, workload and protections.
Compensation
The College argued that their initial salary proposal is “comprehensive and highly competitive,” stating that it would bring “the average salary for all bargaining unit employees (BUEs) to $92,259, well above the average salary in the current market … ”
WOAW claims, however, that a few high earners skew the average under the College’s proposal, and still, 25% of bargaining unit employees (BUEs) make under $68,890.
WOAW unionized to address this particular issue of salary stagnation, pointing out that “the wage gap of $31,000 persists between BUEs who were hired before and after 2008.”
The union pointed out that K-12 teachers in the region have higher starting salaries and much higher salary growth, to reinforce the efficacy of unionization.
The College describes the union’s proposed compensation plan as “unrealistic.”
On their webpage on Non-Tenure Track Unionization at Wellesley, the College states that “the cost of wages and benefits would more than double, from $12 million to at least $24 million, not including proposals for $5 million in additional benefits.”
At the same time, the College emphasized that they will continue to pursue a contract that is fair and responsible with “respect to the long-term financial health of the College, mindful of both the College’s structural deficit and new financial threats in the current environment.”
Battat highlighted the importance of the union’s organizing efforts at a historically women’s college.
“The people who have most to gain from our efforts are primarily young women stuck in a sexist and hierarchical system — one that devalues teaching as historically ‘women’s work.’ We are fighting to give our members, in the words of President Johnson, ‘the economy she deserves,’” she wrote.
Workload
The current proposal from the College would require non-tenure track faculty “to teach five courses to retain [their] current salaries,” which, faculty argues, would raise workloads by 25%.
The College argues that the five-course workload distinguishes the role of BUEs from that of tenure track faculty. BUEs primarily teach, while tenure-track faculty are responsible for teaching, research, scholarship and extensive College and professional service obligations. According to the College, the “proposal is consistent with the teaching load at the majority of peer institutions, where lecturers teach five to six courses per academic year.”
WOAW-UAW rebutted this justification from the College as an attempt “to ‘adjunctify’ non-tenure track faculty at Wellesley by insisting on increasing our teaching load while stripping aspects of our jobs that enrich student experience and are essential to the functioning of the College.”
Protections
Coile refuted the union’s claim that the College is refusing standard union protection for harassment and discrimination. She continued, “To be clear, the College’s proposal prohibits such discrimination and allows for the union to take such cases to arbitration after an internal review.”
The union maintained that it is a standard union protection to be able to enforce the contract by filing a grievance and that should hold for claims of discrimination and harassment.
The College stated that if the Strike Authorization Vote is passed and if the union bargaining team decides to call a strike, the College will remain committed to prioritizing students’ academic experience.
“While we are hopeful this will not be the case, the College is actively preparing for a variety of contingencies to minimize disruptions and ensure the continuity of our academic program for our students.”
The Wellesley News reached out to the College with a request for comment. The College stated that they have no further comment at this time beyond the email they sent to faculty members.
“We have stayed in these unfair positions because we love working with our colleagues and we love our students. But enough is enough. Ultimately, our struggle to win fair compensation and working conditions will benefit everyone,” wrote Battat.
The vote for the strike authorization is ongoing and will end at 11:59 P.M. on Feb. 20. Results will be announced the next day on Friday, Feb. 21.
Contact the editors responsible for this story: Galeta Sandercock and Valida Pau
Updated on February 20, 2025.
