Beatrice Caffé, WSU-CASE

Member Spotlight is a new segment of the Region 6 Newsletter that profiles members from different Region 6 Locals and organizing campaigns each month. Get to know your fellow UAW members from across many industries and states!  

Hi all, my name is Beatrice Caffé from the Washington State University - Coalition of Academic Student Employees (WSU - CASE) campaign! We are Academic Student Employees on WSU campuses across Washington state organizing for our first contract after winning our union in 2022. After nearly a year of bargaining for our first contract despite delays from WSU Admin, we recently voted to set a strike deadline of 1/17/2023 if WSU Admin doesn’t agree to a fair contract by then.

I work in Pullman, WA, where I serve as the primary instructor on a course on childhood and culture for WSU students. A typical day for me involves a lot of student interactions to support them in getting the most out of the class, including answering questions about course content, connecting them with further resources, and more. I got involved in union organizing after many years of working for diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives both in my academic department (Anthropology) as well as at the broader university level. I realized that a strong and fair contract would improve many of the issues my colleagues and I face while working as ASEs. Throughout our fight for a strong first contract, I've enjoyed working on and developing our campaign’s communications strategies with the rest of our comms team, especially on effective strategies to keep our unit informed on bargaining efforts.