WSU’s Coalition of Academic Student Employees went on strike Wednesday for a total of three hours before reaching an agreement with the administration about terms for their union contract. 

Picketers set up a tent outside Martin Stadium at 7 a.m., passing out hand warmers to prepare for a long day. The occasional honk from passing cars broke the usual quiet of the morning as they began to march and their numbers steadily grew. 

The night before, the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost had sent out emails summarizing their history of the negotiations with WSU-CASE, citing over 40 meetings and exchanges of over 200 proposals as efforts to reach a contract that would satisfy both parties. After those talks, several key issues were still unresolved, including the student employee healthcare plan, a tuition fee waiver and leave time.

“WSU unilaterally changed our healthcare plan and caused a bargaining delay for our healthcare insurance. We teach students, we help with staffing, we produce research work that gives WSU the academic prestige, and yet they have been deprioritizing us,” Yiran Guo, fifth year PhD candidate in the school of mechanical and materials engineering, said. “We are not asking them to treat us as the favorite children, but as equal parts of the WSU community.”

Around 8:15 a.m., the union organizers were called away to a meeting with the administration. In their absence, picketers continued chanting and marching in front of Martin Stadium. At 10 a.m., they returned from their meeting with good news; their contract was finalized and the strike was over.

The union had gained ground on all fronts, including wages, leave, and grievance processes for discrimination and harassment cases, union organizer Rowan Calkins said. People cheered and hugged each other, some getting emotional.

“We do a great job of pointing out the problems in academia- appointing a committee here and there,

initiatives here and there, but we never see that material change in people’s lives. People still go hungry, go rent-burdened, or worse, homeless,” Gavin Doyle, third year PhD student in the English department and one of the CASE bargainers speaking with WSU admin, said. “Parents as grad students have to drop out of their programs because they can’t afford child care, or they can’t afford to balance being a parent and a grad student because the system is not equitable for them. This is how we make people’s lives a little bit better.”

The next steps for WSU-CASE are ratifying the contract in the union and enforcing its terms moving forward, Doyle said.