Post-Vote Updates on our Union
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To our new colleagues,
We hope you have had a smooth start to the academic year, and are enjoying your time at Bates so far. This message is to inform you about the current state of organized labor on campus, and to invite you to be involved with our effort as Bates workers to form a wall-to-wall union together.
The conversation about forming our union together came about organically, as we started to recognize shared issues across our campus. Motivating us were burnout and turnover concerns, a lack of clear and transparent pay scales, failure to include us workers in decision-making, and a desire to protect the benefits that we rely on, among others. We are forming our union because we want the College to fulfill its mission and succeed, and we know that cannot happen if we do not have a seat at the table. As a wall-to-wall union, the Bates Educators and Staff Organization (BESO) will include all of us eligible employees across our many departments, so we will have the power to effectively advocate for each other’s needs in ways we could not alone, or divided into smaller groups.
For almost a year now, we Bates workers have been public with our intention to organize a union together. Last October, we filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board, and shortly after that we cast our ballots in a voting period that ended in January of 2022. Unfortunately, those ballots have not yet been counted, because of legal challenges from the College’s administration. The College is arguing that adjunct faculty and other staff should not be allowed to be in the same union together, which is a disappointing attempt to divide us from each other. Right now, the National Labor Relations Board is in the process of making a decision about the College’s appeal, which we hope will come soon.
Regardless of the procedural delays, we are so proud of what we have accomplished in the past year: Though our union is not yet officially recognized, we have done the work to form our organization. We are prepared to take on issues together, and have built powerful relationships across departments, and with our student, alumni and community supporters. We will make it through the appeal process, and will be stronger for it. In the meantime, we will be in touch about updates and ongoing efforts to make the improvements that we need.
If you would like to get involved in the organizing, please reply to this email and let me know! For more information and resources, you can visit our website. We are looking forward to working with you and our other coworkers as we continue to strengthen our unity on campus.
In unity,
BESO Organizing Committee
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Dear colleagues,
Yesterday, members of the Bates Board of Trustees arrived on campus for their first in-person meeting in over two years. Several weeks ago, seeking to establish open and productive communication with the Board, our organizing committee sent a letter requesting a meeting with Board members. Although the Board declined to meet with us at this time, they did agree to sit down and engage in dialogue when we win our union.
Such a commitment makes us hopeful for future collaboration. Still, the Board has important choices to make right now that would strengthen our institution, build bridges and trust among us, and honor us as Bates employees. In particular, we are asking the Board to address two important matters: Honoring our hard work by approving annual cost-of-living raises for staff, and honoring our voices by respecting our election results and withholding from any further legal challenges.
We are calling on the Board to approve fair cost-of-living raises, as they typically do in their May meetings. We all know how hard we have worked throughout this year’s extraordinary circumstances. We have adjusted to constantly-changing COVID conditions on campus, increased turnover in our departments, and high levels of inflation. Our hard work should be honored with fair raises. Further, Bates can afford annual raises, with $282 million already raised from “The Bates Campaign,” and record-setting annual fundraising totals in recent years. To forgo raises this year, of all years, would be a disservice to all of us who work at Bates.
We are calling on the Board to honor the College’s prior commitment to “respect the outcome of the election, whichever way it goes.” The administration’s costly challenges to our bargaining unit have thus far been disappointing, and it is critical that the Board commit to ceasing their legal challenges to our union election, once the NLRB releases a decision. Should we vote YES and win our union, we would expect the College to bargain in good faith and stop their expensive union busting. The Board should commit to that.
While we wish the Board would be willing to meet this weekend about these urgent issues, we remain optimistic that its members will use their time on campus to engage us educators and staff in substantive conversations about making Bates better. To that end, if you are in a space with any Trustee(s) this weekend, we encourage you to raise these two important points to them, to demonstrate their importance to us as a workgroup, and to broadcast our unity.
Finally, we are excited to announce that this past weekend, the Western Maine Labor Council honored BESO with the Workers’ Solidarity Award at the council’s annual May Day Dinner! We are so proud to have the support of our community, who we know will have our backs as we continue to push for what we need and deserve as Bates Educators and Staff.
In unity,
BESO Organizing Committee
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Dear Fellow Bates Educators and Staff,
On March 18th, a 3-member panel of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) members issued a 2-1 split decision to grant the College’s request for review of our wall-to-wall bargaining unit. Though one board member wrote that she would deny the review and allow our vote count to proceed, two board members elected to advance the request for review to the full, five-member NLRB.
In practice, this means that the full NLRB will now have the chance to review the College’s arguments for a divided bargaining unit, and will issue a final decision on the matter. Despite the further delay, we find strength in knowing that we are not alone in this position. Most recently, Starbucks workers in Arizona and New York had their ballot counts postponed because of requests for review by the company. However, the labor board ultimately affirmed those workers’ preferred units and Starbucks workers at four stores won their unions this month! Though the ongoing wait for our vote count is frustrating, and the timeline remains unclear, we are confident that the board will affirm our preferred, wall-to-wall bargaining unit and allow our ballots to be counted.
Throughout this academic year, we have demonstrated that we are a united Bates community. We are all connected by our strong ties across and between departments, institutional commonalities, and shared goals to improve our workplace together. Further, we have already gotten the chance to cast our ballots and make a choice to join together as one bargaining unit. While we wish this opportunity to make the choice ourselves would already be honored, we are ready and excited to legally reaffirm the union that we deserve: All of us, together. No matter how long these legal hurdles take, we will continue to stick together and support each other, and are steadfast in our commitment to improving Bates together.
Finally, as we approach performance reviews and this spring’s Board of Trustees meeting, we want to reiterate that the College can and should reward all of our hard work with pay increases. Cost of living adjustments should proceed as planned, and we should be given the chance to approve unplanned raises. If you hear that union organizing is preventing a raise for you or your coworkers, please reach out ASAP to make a plan together.
We will continue to strengthen our community together as we await a board decision, and will remain united in our desire to have our votes counted and form our wall-to-wall union. If you have any questions or want to participate in the process of preparing for negotiations, do not hesitate to contact anyone involved in organizing efforts! As always, we are motivated by the prospect of including everyone’s voices across campus in the bargaining process, and are hopeful that this opportunity will come soon.
In unity,
BESO Organizing Committee
P.S. If you haven’t gotten the chance to learn more about the negotiations process, check out our “Breaking Down Bargaining” webpage for a collection of answers to frequently asked questions and a glossary of common terms used in negotiations!
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Dear Colleagues,
These past few weeks, we had countless conversations and sensed the excitement, in every program and department, about driving Bates forward through our union. Right now, we are feeling very grounded, grateful, and motivated by the knowledge that so many of us are ready to come together to build a better Bates. Based on such great feedback - we feel confident that an overwhelming number of us stepped up and voted YES!
After the National Labor Relations Board heard ample testimony from the Bates administration—for 3 out of the 4 days devoted to hearings in November—the NLRB nevertheless ruled in December to approve our vote for a union that includes all of us. Unfortunately, and a full two weeks after the NLRB ruled to approve our unit, the administration demanded a review of the NLRB’s decision, to push back against our choice and try to divide us from each other right before our opportunity to vote.
Although the Bates administration’s demand for a review of our wall-to-wall unit did not impact the timeline for us to send in our ballots, it will unfortunately delay our vote count until the NLRB makes a decision on whether the College’s argument has enough merit to conduct a formal review.
Our view is simple:
This vote was our chance to make our own decision on forming our union together. We have cast our ballots. It’s time for the administration and their expensive consultants to stop playing legal games, respect our decision, and get out of the way of the NLRB counting our ballots. The College should honor their commitment to respect our choice: stop telling us one thing while doing another.
Still, we are hopeful the Board will allow our vote count to proceed soon, so we can finalize the formal recognition of our union and start the process of negotiating a first contract that meets our needs as Bates College employees.
In the meantime, we are ready to move forward as a union, start to tackle the issues and concerns all of us share, and begin to prepare for negotiations—so once the Board counts our ballots, we are ready to bring everyone’s voices to the negotiations table.
Sincerely,
BESO Organizing Committee