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Amendments to Existing Articles:

Amendment to Article 5

No meeting of a working group, bargaining committee, or Joint Council can end without a majority vote from the participants.

Amendment to Article 6

All union wide decisions that do not require urgent response must be made in the Monthly Membership Meeting. These decisions include, but are not limited to, all decisions on:

Finances, including expense approvals
External causes to support
Staffing
Mobilizations and actions
Dis/establishment of committees and working groups

Decisions requiring an urgent response may be made by the Joint or Executive Councils, as appropriate. Members are not allowed to postpone raising an issue for the purpose of appealing to the Councils rather than the Monthly Membership Meeting.

Amendment to Article 10.8

Daily summaries of bargaining sessions including details of all proposals and counter-proposals made by all parties must be emailed to membership and posted on the Union’s website in a manner exclusively accessible to union members within 24 hours of a bargaining session’s conclusion. The logics of proposals and counter-proposals made by the bargaining team, and explanations of how these (counter-) proposals are in line with the approved bargaining demands, must be elaborated in the email and website post.

Amendment to Article 10.9

Initial bargaining demands must be specifically worded as they would appear in our contract, have their priority ranked by members in the Initial Bargaining Survey, and be approved by a majority of present unit members in the General Membership meeting before bargaining begins. The bargaining committee must faithfully aim to obtain these demands to the fullest extent, prioritizing the most highly ranked.

Amendment to Article 12.4

All standing committees and working groups are required to have a charter approved by the Monthly Membership Meeting. This charter should at a minimum explicate:

The committees’/working groups’ purview
The actions the committees/working groups are authorized to take independently of the Monthly Membership Meeting
The resources the committees/working groups are allowed to have at their disposal without needing Monthly Membership Meeting approval
The formal procedures needed to internally validate committee/working group decisions

No committee or working group is permitted to operate in the Union’s name without such a charter. If a working group is found to be acting outside of the charter, the group is liable for sanction by the Monthly Membership Meeting.

Amendment to Article 15.2

Union elections and a list of available positions must be announced during hte academic year and no less than two months ahead of time. Candidates for all contested positions must be registered and their position statements made available no less than one month before the election. Reminders shall be sent to all members two weeks before, one week before, and the day of elections.

Polls for union elections must be open for no less than one week. No period of polling time can coincide with:

Labor Day
Veterans’ Day
Thanksgiving/Native American Heritage Day
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Presidents’ Day
Memorial Day
The first week of any quarter
Finals Week
Winter, Spring, or Summer breaks

In the month leading up to the opening of the polls, the Elections Working Group must hold at least two candidate forums for all contested, union-wide positions. These forums must be publicized.

Amendment to Article 20.1

In the interests of oversight, preventing self-dealing, and avoiding the appearance or fact of corruption, no person in a position of elected responsibility in the Union can also hold a paid staff position with the Union, other than the President and/or Financial Secretary. All people in positions of elected responsibility must either be:

Active members of a unit that bargains with the University of Washington; or
In a position to immediately assume a position in a unit that bargains with the University of Washington upon the expiration of their term of service, having left their position as a unit member only either to:
- Serve in a position of elected responsibility; or
- Continue research activities on fellowship.

New Articles

Regulation of the CAT System

The CAT System should be used to mobilize for actions only when such use has been approved in the Monthly Membership Meeting.

In the event a union mobilization is required without time for approval by the Monthly Membership Meeting, the Joint Council has the ability to authorize CAT use on an emergency basis. To qualify for Joint Council CAT authorization, the mobilization must be in response to circumstances outside the action organizers’ control and requiring immediate response. The mobilization must be planned in such a way that it did not intentionally attempt to skirt approval by the Monthly Membership Meeting for the purpose of appealing directly to the Joint Council. The event must not be planned or sponsored by a member of the Joint Council.

CAT mobilizations can be executed in the following ways:

Full Mobilization – All union members are contacted.
Partial Mobilization – Only some union members are contacted, the exact percent of the list to be contacted to be determined by the participants in the Monthly Membership Meeting.
Single Contact – Union members are contacted a single time, with no follow-up in the event of a non-response.
Response Required – Union members are to be contacted repeatedly until they register a response.
Text Only – Union members are to be contacted only by text message.
Text and Call – Union members may be contacted by text message or voice call.

Meeting Minute Accessibility

All working groups, bargaining committees, and Joint Council must maintain online libraries of their meeting minutes. The libraries must be accessible to all union members at all times, with confidential personal information redacted.

Decision-Making Transparency

No working group, bargaining committee, or Joint Council can maintain formal communication channels that are not visible to all union members at all times, except:

When making communications public would compromise confidential personal information; and
In exceptional circumstances that require temporary secrecy for a union effort to succeed.

Any union-wide decisions made in a secret channel are unenforceable beyond the extent to which they are relevant to the particular effort that requires secrecy.

In-Person Meetings Encouraged

All union meetings must have an in-person option that participants are encouraged to attend over online options. For Monthly Membership Meetings, all members of Joint Council must attend in-person, barring exceptional circumstances that make such attendance impossible (e.g., sickness, travel). After each membership meeting, at least one member of Joint council should initiate post-meeting socialization.

Education Steward Created

A new Joint Council position is to be created, Education Steward. The education Steward is responsible for ensuring that a seminar on Union Practice and Administration takes place each month. The seminar will discuss and teach participants about the by-laws of UAW 4121, Robert’s Rules, the structure of the Union’s leadership and organizing bodies, and how to successfully execute common union tactics like grievances, petitions, marches on the boss, pickets, and sit-ins.

The Education Steward is additionally responsible for the organization of ad hoc seminars, which provide targeted instruction for time-sensitive mobilizations.

Regular seminars organized by the Education Steward shall be well-publicized to all union members with information posted to the Union’s website at least one month in advance. Seminars shall have free food provided to in-person participants to the extent financially feasible.

Meeting Accessibility

Union committees, working groups, Joint Council, and Monthly Membership Meetings may not be held between 8:30am and 5:30pm, Monday through Friday to ensure maximum likelihood that members are not prevented from engaging with the Union due to being in class or at work during meeting times.

Procedural Transparency

All union meetings must start with a brief explanation of Robert’s Rules of Order to ensure that all members present have the skills necessary for democratic participation.

Proposed Bylaw Amendments