UA workers lose big in tentative contract )
News just broke that the University of Alaska (UA) and United Academics (UNAC) have tentatively agreed to (TA’ed) a FY26-28 contract. UNAC represents around 1100 UA workers, mostly faculty.
UA staff and faculty, this is no cause for celebration! The TA’ed contract is another defeat for the entire University of Alaska workforce. (We say entire workforce because faculty and staff raises are kept in lockstep.)
UA workers, you know you have suffered years of paltry raises and high inflation! Even knowing this, UNAC opened negotiations with a demand for 3 annual 5% raises. In making this demand, they readily conceded that faculty would still have 2.5% less buying power in 2028 than they did in 2018. Now UNAC is willing to settle for annual raises of around 3%. This, even though in 2023 Alaska workers got average raises of 5.2%. This, even though faculty at public universities are getting raises closer to 3.4%. It can’t be spun any other way: if you accept this contract, you accept yet another cut to your real wages. And not just your wages, but those of all your coworkers.
UNAC leadership will tell you they had reasons to do what they did. True and fine. We believe them. UNAC leadership are probably good people. Militant. They might even know the words to the full version of Solidarity Forever. All the same, the union form is legally bound to a process that is designed to regulate class conflict and make it safe. The reality is that their methods can’t get the goods. More than that, your complacency, UA worker, is why they feel compelled to settle!
What can get the goods is a unified, extralegal struggle of all UA workers. Don’t wait for the spineless fucks to vote to strike. Protest, call out sick, engage in sabotage, work to rule! Anything else you can think of! Most of all, involve your comrades in these actions. Explain to them that the struggle doesn’t need to be decided by a small band of union negotiators – it’s up to us! By your initiative and conviction, inspire them to follow your lead! These are the methods by which we can begin to come together for the overwhelming, unified strike against our bosses.
We call on all faculty to vote no to the slave contract proposal. We call on all faculty to then vote to authorize a strike. But that isn’t enough. Not nearly! Union tactics leave the workforce in the swamp of legality. Union tactics divide up the workforce into cliques that are apathetic to one another, if not outright hostile. So, above all, we call on the entire workforce to take the future into its own hands.
EDITED TO ADD: The TA’ed contract calls for increased minimum salaries. Without knowing more, we can say two things: this won’t help staff at all, and it will apply to very few faculty.