| |  | UFAS Updates | Welcome to October. It's been a busy fall for UFAS and on campus--most recently with the news of Chancellor Blank's departure. We'll be organizing around the process and criteria for finding her replacement. In the meantime, we hope you and your loved ones are hanging in there and staying hydrated. Read on for more about what UFAS has been up to! What we’ve been up to Join current efforts Disability Justice at UW-Madison action organizing Academic Workers’ Rights campaign University Labor Council organizing AbolitionUW Book Club & resource list
For fun Linktree & upcoming GMM
| | What we’ve been up to |  | Image: Jason, Katherine, Emily, Chad, Dan, Anya, and Hannah with fists raised at the Summer Picnic | Actions: System president search & Bans Off Our BodiesMembers were heard loud and clear at the UW System presidential search listening sessions in early October -- in person and virtually. We thanked Regent VP Karen Walsh for sharing the UW Worker Bill of Rights with the search committee. |  | Image: Members in Tripp Commons on campus in front of a microphone | Organized academic staff and faculty care about and are actively engaged in the search for the next UW System president and have clear expectations for the process and outcome. Read more about the UW Worker Bill of Rights and see more opportunities to get involved below. UFAS members with unions from the South Central Federation of Labor at the October 2nd Bans Off Our Bodies March to defend and protect access to full reproductive care: |  | Image: Members in front of the Capitol building with an AFSCME Local 2412 banner Are there actions happening in your spheres that you want UFAS to show up for? Please always send them along through the UFAS google group listserv and/or post information in the Discord. We all want to show out for each other! Endorsements: HELU & cops out of AFTThe Higher Education Labor United platformHELU, a national coalition of higher ed labor unions, is actively working to shape the higher ed portion of the budget reconciliation bill in a more progressive direction: to ensure four year college students also have access to two years of tuition free education, ensuring that 75% of courses are taught by tenure line faculty at any institution that receives federal funding, and ensuring higher ed institutions don’t suppress union organizing.
We signed on to their vision- please check it out: HELU vision platform A call on the AFT to disaffiliate from cop unionsThis letter was written primarily by members of two Rank and File caucuses of AFT: RAFT at Temple University and RAFA at City University of New York. Its demands align with the efforts of our Equity and Diversity Committee (EDC), aka AbolitionUW, the work of which has focused on cops off campus efforts since its inception in spring 2020. UFAS is the first local to endorse as a local. Please feel free to sign on as an individual below. Grievance trainingsThank you for joining us at our Grievance Committee chair Michael Childers’ trainings on general workplace grievances and TTC appeals this past month. Having the skills and context to support each other and our colleagues is one of our main values and you all are contributing to an important core of rank-and-file. Missed the trainings? Contact Michael at drchilders@gmail.com to get connected with grievance efforts. AFT-W Convention |  | Image: AFT-W 87th Convention flyer The AFT-Wisconsin convention is upcoming next week: October 19-23rd. UFAS is sending 13 delegates to the virtual convention! We will be voting on AFT-W leadership as well as constitutional amendments and resolutions.
In addition to those voting delegates, all members are welcome and invited to attend. Everything you need to know about the convention: 2021 Convention Materials | | Join current effortsDisability Justice at UW-Madison action organizingUFAS members have been working with members of the BIPOC Coalition, Graduate and Professional Studies with Disabilities, and the Teaching Assistants Association to coordinate actions around disability justice on campus, largely to challenge UW-Madison’s dismal response to disabled faculty, staff, and students asking for remote work accommodations related to COVID-19.
If you are interested in this topic, please email emilymargrit@gmail.com to get involved! Academic Workers’ Rights campaignOur Compensation and Benefits Committee (CBC) is now focusing on organizing a proactive and long-term academic workers' rights campaign including efforts around job security, workplace autonomy, and voice in the workplace. Currently we are putting together a strategic plan to improve job security for academic staff on our campus. CBC continues to meet on Wednesdays, 4-5pm over Zoom. However, if you are interested in being part of this campaign but Wednesdays 4-5pm is not a good time for you, please let Anya know what other times on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday will work better: aparetskaya@gmail.com. Everyone’s involvement is important to us! University Labor Council organizingUFAS members organize with other unions and workers on campus through the University Labor Council (ULC). Currently, ULC is focused on working with food service employees and organizing workplace hubs where large numbers of people across sectors work. In covid, there are many overlapping concerns, including worker safety, accommodations, and well-being as people are asked to do more and more on campus.
This is the place to share with members of TAA, AFSCME 171, AFSCME 2412 and student workers. To get involved, contact Jason at: 13jlee@gmail.com. AbolitionUW Book Club & resource list |  | Image: AbolitionUW Book Club flyer featuring Prison by Any Other Name The UFAS EDC / AbolitionUW has picked out our fall semester read - Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law (The New Press, 2021). It is available at UW-Madison and Madison Public Libraries, or wherever books are sold (though we recommend you patronize everyone’s favorite local bookstore, Room of One’s Own). Anyone who would like to participate can hop into the AbolitionUW book club Discord for an asynchronous discussion during the fall semester, with at least one virtual synchronous meeting over winter break. Join our book club Discord using the link in our linktree - https://linktr.ee/abolitionuw. Resource list We are also calling various organizations on our Don't Call The Cops resource list to vet information so it can be published. Please join us at our future meetings to ideate on our next project! Every other Tuesday, 5:00-6:00pm, over Zoom
UFAS event calendar | | For funMeet a new member: Yasmin SchamilogluUFAS + labor movement I just joined UFAS when I started my new job in September! I wanted to find a political home and help build some power in Madison. Over the last year, we have been seeing what workers are able to do together—your work here, people striking and new unions forming across the country and the world, like the dockworkers on the west coast and in Italy in solidarity with Palestine. At the Mobilization Against Militarism on 9/11, I saw people wearing t-shirts from their locals and thought, okay, let’s do this, and I think I signed up for UFAS the next day. So far, I have been coming to different meetings, to meet all of you and learn what you are doing, and hope to do work with the United Labor Council. What I do at UW I’m at the Morgridge Center for Public Service in the Red Gym, where I get to work with a team of students in helping UW affiliates prepare for community engagement. There is a history of people coming from UW, trying to engage communities in projects or research, and harming them in the process. At the same time, with care and attention, we can collaborate and benefit everyone involved. We are trying to connect with people doing community engaged work and support their training, so they can have mutually beneficial, mutually respectful, equitable, sustainable partnerships! We have a lot of different programs and resources to support people doing this work, so please reach out if you have any interest! In my free time My brother shot a short film this summer, and I was the boom operator. I’m trying to learn to record better audio before we do another this winter! |  | Image: My brother Bulat, left, and me, right, after we wrapped our last morning of film shooting. Flyer & sticker scavenger hunt |  | Image: photo of UFAS flyer 238 on-campus members should have gotten a campus mailing with flyers for your buildings and stickers for you! We also tabled at the Employee Benefits Fair and sent visitors home with flyers for the office. (Also, do you need or want some? Let us know and we’ll send them along.) Have you seen any UFAS materials in the wild across campus? Send us a picture or post it in the Discord- we have Daily Scoop coupons for the first several folks who find our swag. 🍦🍦🍦 Hang out on DiscordWe made the transition from Slack to the mobile & browser platform Discord! Come hang out with us and keep apprised of what is going on across campus, the community, and the state. Among other resources, we have a voice and video channel for socializing and an off-topic channel for pictures of your pets, planning meetups, and more. Join us: UFAS Discord | | Meetings & LinktreeFind our ever-updating list of relevant links at linktr.ee/ufas. Bookmark it! Equity & Diversity Committee Meetings: Every other Tuesday, 5-6 p.m. For Zoom details, email ufas.edc@gmail.com. Current focus: resource alternatives to the police; the AbolitionUW book club. Compensation & Benefits Committee Meeting: Wednesdays, 4-5 p.m. over Zoom. To join, email Anya Paretskaya. General Membership Meeting: October 28, 12-1 p.m. | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84011416487, Meeting ID: 840 1141 6487, Passcode: 635879 | | |
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