October 2023

Dear UA members,

This is a contract bargaining year, which means that a lot of our current efforts are focused on hearing members’ concerns and priorities and using this to inform our UA bargaining platform. Throughout this semester, we’re preparing for bargaining by talking to our members, creating spaces for members to talk to one another and to get involved in the work of your union, deepending our partnerships with our broader community and fellow unions, and building power in our membership. There are opportunities to learn, share, and get involved through United Academics all around campus and online. If those don’t work for you, let us know: we’ll find another way to connect. This is how we prepare, and this is your opportunity to share what’s important to you so that we may collectively work to make it possible.

We know that the administration will not just give faculty the cost of living salary adjustments that are needed, along with all the other important changes that we will propose. It will take demonstrations of union power, including at every bargaining session this spring and the events and actions that we plan as part of this contract campaign.

Getting a fair contract cannot be the work of a small bargaining team (mighty that they are), nor of a few leadership committees. We need to do this work all together. There is power in a UNION. We hope to see you out at our many upcoming events, details below.

In solidarity,

Suzy and Katlyn

UA Supports UVM Grad Workers

This fall, UA leaders have met with members of the UVM graduate student union organizing committee and a staff member of UAW with whom the graduate students are working to organize their union. UVM grad students have been working on this effort for several years, and they are now at the point of a public campaign. We are so excited for them, and hope that many of our members will be willing to act in solidarity to support grad students in this effort. 

Please attend the first Graduate Students United rally, next week on Monday, October 30 from 12-2pm on the Davis Center green (between Davis and Howe).

UVM Graduate Students United has just launched a petition; please sign and share: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stand-in-solidarity-with-graduate-student-workers-at-uvm?source=direct_link&

Stay up to date with UVM Grad Students United - UAW

Upcoming Events: Know Your Rights, Bargaining Priorities, and more

UA is hosting a series of virtual Contract Highlights: Know Your Faculty Rights meetings. Especially useful for newer faculty, delegates, and reps, these conversations go over rights bargained for and guaranteed by our contracts. Protect yourself, and each other, by knowing your rights.

Next Contract Highlights meetings:
Friday, October 27, 2-3:15pm
Thursday, November 2, 1-2:15pm
Members: check your email for Zoom links.

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We are also holding Contract Bargaining Priorities meetings all around campus with Jane Knodell, who will again be serving as union lead negotiator, and Katlyn as UA prepares for negotiations this Spring. 

Next Contract Bargaining Priorities meetings:
Thursday, October 26, at 9am (Dewey), 10:30am (Mann Hall), and 1pm (Morrill)
Friday, November 3, 11:40am (Rowell)

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November 14: Fall Membership Meeting (for all UA members)
3:30 - 5:30pm, John Dewey Lounge, Old Mill

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November 6: Fall Non-Tenure Track Faculty Caucus
3:30-5:30pm on Zoom

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Graduate Student Union Rally

Monday, October 30, 12-2pm, Davis Center green.

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For a full list of UA meetings and events, as well as meetings and events held by other unions and endorsed by UA, visit our calendar.

Read this

UVM Abruptly Cancels Palestinian Lecturer, Causing Uproar
Patrick St. John | The Rake Vermont | October 24

““At no time were we brought into [UVM’s] discussion about what else we might do to bring el-Kurd’s voice to Vermont,” Lipsitt said. “It was a done deal.”

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