On Wednesday, June 7, 2,400 academic workers walked off the job at the University of Washington in Seattle for six days. About nine hundred postdocs represented by United Auto Workers (UAW) 4121 Academic Workers and 1,400 researcher scientists/engineers (RSEs) represented by University of Washington (UW) Researchers United–UAW were striking in response to what they describe as bad-faith bargaining by the university. Academic workers complained in particular about the university’s trying to unilaterally reclassify some employees as hourly workers in order to avoid paying them a higher minimum salary as required by Washington state law. The strike continues the wave of labor militancy that’s been crashing across US universities, including a massive strike in the University of California system last fall that UW workers say inspired their own walkout.

Workers suspended their strike on Thursday, June 15, after the unions reached tentative agreements (TAs) with the university; on June 20, members of both UAW 4121 and UW Researchers United voted overwhelmingly to ratify the agreements, which included significant pay raises for postdocs and researchers. Jacobin’s Sara Wexler spoke with postdoc Sora Kim and researcher Jai Broome after the TAs were released to discuss why they went on strike, how the university responded, and what the workers won.