Our goal is to grow membership in all three existing units - to bring all three units to supermajority membership. More members = more empowered workers = more power to fight the boss. Union members are more likely to know their rights, to know how to get involved in leadership positions and to turn out for their colleagues when our rights are infringed on. We will work together to identify and work with at least one steward per department, and strengthen our organizing committees through proactive communication and highly participatory campaigns.

Our union is built on empowering workers through a strong leadership network that empowers mass member participation required for a democratic and powerful union. We want to create Contract Action Teams to provide more workers in every department clear and direct on-ramps to organizing in their departments, getting involved in working groups, and running for elected positions within 4121. We want to work together with Head Stewards to implement a coordinated organizing plan to coordinate focus areas & projects to concretely build up strong leaders in every department and school.

In the next three years, 4121 will be bargaining a minimum of 3 contracts (Collective Bargaining Agreements). We want to win a contract that works for our members through participatory bargaining with wages that keep up with the cost of living, job security, more support for international & non-citizen workers, protections for workers who participate in political or community actions, and more. 

We know from experience that our power to win strong contracts is directly related to broad, visible, and complete participation at each step of the bargaining process. To that, we want to equip as many members across the union as possible with tools to enforce our contracts. We will work with stewards in each department to identify broadly & deeply felt issues in areas such as health & safety, job security, and reasonable accommodations to organize proactive contract enforcement campaigns as a way of getting members involved in taking collective action and ownership of enforcing our contracts.

We want to organize as many unorganized workers in order to grow worker power to fight the boss, especially in an uncertain federal climate. More units of unionized workers bring higher wages and more workplace protections to everyone. In an uncertain federal climate, we want to bring the security of union protections to more workers. Starting with Research Coordinators & Consultants, we want to bring 1000+ professional staff workers at UW under contract.

We need more students, Postdocs, and Research Staff communicating the importance of our work to the broader public. Our union is a very powerful vehicle for political action that we can use to make our voices heard: while as individuals we might not necessarily be able to exert as much political influence, when all 8,000 of us that are represented by 4121 come together and organize collectively, we can wield real political power to advance a worker-centered vision of politics. 

We want to continue building political engagement campaigns so that every rank-and-file member is empowered to engage in political actions through our union. We have a goal of activating 500 4121 members to take part their first political organizing campaign over the next 3 years through canvassing, testifying in Olympia, directly connecting with legislators, and running for office.

Our jobs, our research, our communities in higher ed are under attack on multiple fronts, from the federal government to the lack of proactive support from our employer. As workers who make the UW work, we are on the frontlines of these attacks. 

In this moment, the Trump Administration is holding funding hostage to enact attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, international & non-citizen workers, academic freedom & right to protest via our workplaces, the WA state government is attempting to furlough workers rather than fixing our regressive taxes, and our employer is “monitoring and evaluating” the situation when the very future of our sector is at stake. 

We have a different vision for how we must be meeting this moment. We are ready lead a fighting labor movement by continuing to reform our own UAW International towards taking a more aggressive organizing and political strategies, strengthening crucical coalitions with other unions in King County & Washington State, as well as growing our network of higher ed labor unions to shape effective coordinated, escalatory campaigns with mass participation on every campus and city across the US.