We Won!

The administration of Edmonds College has agreed to pay the Nursing faculty the state-funded high-demand salary enhancements required by the Workforce Education Investment Act! They will be paid retroactively from July 7, which was when the first paycheck without the salary enhancement was issued. The full text of their message can be found here but the important quote is as follows:

“In the interest of our students, our Nursing Program, and the College, we are applying the Nursing Allocation payments effective July 7, 2025, in accordance with Appendix A.10.”

Thank You!

The administration

All of the faculty of Edmonds College got paid last week, but the Nursing faculty still have not received one-fifth of their salary. The college administration still has not given our Nursing faculty the high-demand salary enhancements that are mandated by the Workforce Education Investment Act and paid for by the state of Washington. The state has given the college money to pay part of the salary for our nursing educators, and the college administration unilaterally decided to keep that money.

Dr. Singh and others in the administration have responded to the union saying that the administration

Dr. Singh announced in an email on September 19, 2025, that enrollment at the college was up 8%.

But when the time comes to negotiate a new contract with the faculty union, we expect that Dr. Chapman will show the Faculty Collective Bargaining Team a budget projection that predicts disaster in an attempt to explain why the college cannot possibly spend more money on faculty salaries. What we have noticed is that while faculty salaries stagnate, the salaries of administrators continue to climb. Here is some salary data drawn from the Washington State Fiscal Information website.

The faculty of this college feel very strongly that we are getting more and more administrative tasks thrust upon us. Tasks that used to be handled by staff, like updating classes in Curriculog or verifying that we are being paid the correct amount each pay period, are now being handled by faculty because of staffing cuts. Other tasks, like requesting time off or special assignment pay, now have extra bureaucratic barriers that discourage faculty from completing them. While these administrative tasks pile up on faculty desks, the college is also hiring less full-time tenured faculty to do the

At Edmonds College, associate faculty are paid less than full-time faculty to teach classes. To be specific, Edmonds College associate faculty are paid 65% of a full-time faculty member’s salary to teach the same class. It is commonly argued that full-time faculty have more responsibilities than associate faculty, like office hours, student advising, or committee work that associate faculty are not required to do, so they get paid more for that work. However, it is also well understood that the extra responsibilities of full-time faculty represent 15% of their workload.

This means that

The union would like to report about the events of the Board of Trustees meeting on September 18, 2025. Members of the union attended the meeting to demand that the college stop the withholding of nursing high-demand salary increases by the college administration. One union member, Taylor Smith, spoke during the public comment section on the issue. The president of the college, Dr. Singh, spoke in response to Taylor’s public comment, and our union president, Scott Haddock, gave a response to the president’s response.

During the public comment session at the BOT meeting on Sept 18, 2025, union