We have a contract!
We are delighted to report that we reached a tentative agreement with the College on August 29, 2025 and today, our members ratified the Tentative Agreement.
The vote on whether to ratify our tentative agreement with Wellesley College concluded as of 12:00pm today and 98.77% of those participating voted yes to ratify our contract. The results are as follows:
YES 80 votes
NO 1 vote
Over the past fifteen months, we have bargained fiercely, organized tirelessly, and conducted a supermajority strike that demonstrated our collective power. Through these efforts, we have won a fair contract that will set the standard for faculty in higher ed. We are stronger together!
Our collective courage, hard work, and solidarity has resulted in substantive gains for our community. This agreement includes new titles that better reflect our role as teaching-focused faculty providing a world-class education. Our contract supports Wellesley’s mission with a first-ever child-care benefit and a Prohibition against Discrimination and Harassment article that sets a gold standard. We eliminated tiers from the Workload proposal, ensuring that benefits-eligibility and part-time work is based on a four-course workload for non-visiting BUEs, while giving current full-time BUEs the option to teach five courses for an increase in base salary. Additionally, we won a 50% increase in overload pay for teaching labs. We have ensured our job security by streamlining the evaluation process, establishing the presumption of reappointment, and defending the right to grieve non-reappointment. For the first time, we have guaranteed appointment security—your salary and FTE cannot be reduced mid-contract, even if your classes are canceled. Our contract not only raises the starting salary for faculty by nearly 15%, but it also addresses wage compression that resulted from the College freezing our starting salaries from 2008 until 2020. Overall, we have won a 10.6% salary increase for our unit in the first year.
As strong as our union is, we could not have achieved this contract without the incredible support of our students and their parents, our alums, our tenure-line colleagues, IMSEUA (our sibling union on campus), and all those who voiced their support and refused to cross our picket line. We are proud of the community we have built and feel confident that our contract will help make Wellesley a better place to work, learn, and grow.
Next Steps in Building our Union
On Monday, September 8, we will put out a call for election for interim Executive Board officers. These officers will serve until May of 2026, when we will elect officers for a three-year term (per the UAW Constitution). Interim officers may run for reelection in May or may step down. Look for the formal notice on Monday.
Next week, we will also provide our new membership card and announce a meeting to start formally establishing our union here at Wellesley College, including next steps like enforcing our contract and planning ongoing organizing efforts.
In solidarity,
Deb Bauer
Christa Skow
Erin Battat
Katie Hall
WOAW-UAW Bargaining Committee