To: Wellesley College Community
From: Courtney Coile, Provost and Lia Gelin Poorvu ’56 Dean of the College, and Carolyn Slaboden, Chief Human Resources Officer
Re: In a bid to end strike, College puts major compromises on table; union refuses to engage
Date: April 3, 2025
As the WOAW-UAW strike enters its second week, today the College offered a major compromise on workload. The union rejected the offer and refused to discuss the College’s other proposals.
Over two bargaining sessions this week, the College brought a total of 23 proposals to the table that, taken together, address all but two of the remaining articles of the contract being negotiated. The College made this push in a determined effort to allow the two parties to move toward agreement more quickly and bring the strike to a close.
In contrast, today the union offered only an overview of the proposals it had shared earlier in the week and an unrealistic revision to its compensation proposal.
Understanding that workload has been one of the major sticking points in our negotiations, the College offered a significant compromise that would allow current lecturers and instructors of science laboratory (ISLs) to opt out of the proposed five-course load for the duration of their time at Wellesley. Rather than embrace this good-faith proposal, which would have resolved many issues, the union flatly rejected the offer without suggesting compromises of their own.
Additional examples of the progress the College offered this week include:
A new Dependent Care provision under which families with children age 5 or younger would receive a pretax benefit of $5,000.
A set of new Leave proposals, including a semester of fully paid parental leave, after only one year of faculty service for lecturers and ISLs.
On Discrimination and Harassment, the College accepted the union’s request to add the category of citizenship in the contract’s antidiscrimination commitment.
On Promotions, the College made it easier for faculty to be promoted to senior lecturer and the newly introduced rank of principal lecturer by shortening the service requirement to eight years.
The College agreed to limit rents for faculty housing to 70% of market rents for the life of the contract.
The union declined to discuss any of the articles the College put on the table this week, then said they would engage on individual issues only if the College presented all the articles in one comprehensive package—a highly unusual request that goes against general negotiating practice when so many issues remain open. The College considers this all-or-nothing approach unproductive, especially in the middle of an ongoing strike that is having such a negative impact on our community.
The College offered to add a negotiation session on Monday, which the union accepted. However, given the union’s refusal to engage in a substantive discussion of the proposals the College presented today, we see a diminishing path toward progress. The College emphatically calls on the union to agree to use a neutral, third-party mediator whose sole purpose would be to jointly bring the parties to a final contract.