UA workers lose big in tentative contract )
News just broke that the University of Alaska (UA) and United Academics (UNAC) 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. What faculty get, staff get.)
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 2.75%, 3.0%, and 3.25%. This, even though in 2023 Alaska workers got average raises of 5.2%. This, even though faculty at public universities are getting raises averaging 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’s leaders are probably good people. Militant, too. All the same, the union form is now integrated into a system meant to regulate class conflict and make it safe. The union’s methods can’t get the goods.
(But the fault isn’t theirs alone. Your complacency, UA worker, is why they felt they had to settle! You get the leaders you deserve.)
What will get the goods is a unified, extralegal struggle of all UA workers. Don’t wait for spineless fucks to vote to strike. Begin the struggle yourself! 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 you can’t rely on the largess of the bosses. Explain to them that the struggle isn’t decided by a band of union negotiators. By your initiative and conviction, inspire them to join the fight!
This is the way we can begin to come together for the overwhelming, unified strike against our bosses. It is a long way, a hard way, but it is the only way.
We call on all faculty to vote no to the proposed slave contract. But that isn’t enough. Even a strike of the faculty isn’t enough. Not nearly! Union tactics leave us in the swamp of legality. Union tactics divide us up into cliques that are apathetic or even hostile to one another. Above all, we call on the entire UA workforce to take the future into its own hands. We must fight a mass struggle outside of the unions!
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 likely apply to very few faculty.