Session 21: They have the money, they just don’t think we’re worth it
“Unlike some situations, we don’t need to raise the starting salary to attract good people. We have good people that come into the bargaining unit who come in with the salaries that we have.”
-Nick DiGiovanni, Lead Negotiator for the College
Today, we heard several times that the College is rejecting proposals because they do not want to provide benefits to all faculty and staff at Wellesley. The College picks and chooses when it values equality in how benefits are distributed across campus. While we only negotiate on behalf of the bargaining unit (WOAW faculty and post-docs), we would be thrilled to see the College making good on their values by providing all faculty and staff with benefits, like childcare.
Childcare
In our last proposal, we asked Wellesley for a $5000 childcare benefit for BUEs with a dependent under the age of 13 and $2500 for each additional dependent under the age of 13.
The College stated that they “are not interested” in providing any childcare benefit because the College would not want to provide it for all staff.
Our childcare proposal is a drop in the bucket. We know our proposal is not cost prohibitive. Wellesley should make good on its values and provide a childcare benefit for all of its employees.
Compensation
The College is also continuing to justify their salary proposal with exploitative practices. Today, the College proposed a starting salary of $72,000 for a 5 course workload. According to the College, their proposal would increase their salary expenditures by 6.3%, while our teaching loads would increase 25%.
We explained how we justify $90,000 as a starting salary. Bargaining Committee member Katie Hall explained:
“If the starting salaries were not frozen at $55,000 in 2008 and if they grew at a rate of 3% per year, in 2025 the starting salaries would be $90,900. Additionally, the College pays some new faculty with their terminal degree at least $90K as a starting salary, and gives them a 1-year break from teaching after their first three years at the college and additional 1-year breaks from teaching every 6 years after. Those employees also get additional benefits, mortgage, tuition, retirement, and job security for the length of their career. We have had many discussions with our colleagues in our unit and we are here representing what they think is a fair number for their work. Finally, we used average lecturer salary data from the 2023 AAUP survey for all the COFHE schools within 100 miles of Wellesley who were rated above #30 in the US News and World rankings. We found an average salary adjusted for inflation in 2025, and subtracted 20% to estimate the starting salary from the average. The average starting salary is $91,170, for a 4 or less course load per year.”
In response, when asked how the College justifies $72,000, the College’s lead negotiator stated:
“Unlike some situations, we don’t need to raise the starting salary to attract good people. We have good people that come into the bargaining unit who come in with the salaries that we have.”
Although the College explicitly stated that they can afford our proposal on salaries, they are choosing not to engage seriously with our demand. 72K for a 5 course workload is a nonstarter.
While our actions are working to make some movement at the table, the College continues to reject key proposals with little to no justification. We need your involvement to win a strong contract. Some opportunities to get involved are below
Come to our community lunch on March 6th from 12:45-2 in Science Center H305. We’re providing pizza and dessert. Please RSVP here so we can have enough food.
Join our community wide rally on Monday, March 10th from 12:45-2pm; we’ll meet at North Entrance/Central St entrance next to Davis parking lot. Let’s show the College just how powerful we are together and that we are serious about making progress at the bargaining table.
As things speed up, we’re committed to keeping everyone up to date with the major movements in bargaining. As always, if you want to see all the details you can visit our website (https://www.wellesleyorganizedacademicworkers.org/bargaining-hub).
In Solidarity,
The WOAW Bargaining Committee,
Deb Bauer
Erin Battat
Katie Hall
Mike Mavros
Christa Skow