8th day of negotiations for our Contract | Columbia Postdoctoral Workers

This past Tuesday, May 31st, we had our seventh bargaining session for our Contract with Columbia University’s Administration!!💥💥💥

Quick recap: 🏃💨 🏃⏱️

>> read the detailed recap after, below

We presented our counter offers on the non-economic proposals, accepting some language on Vacation, Holidays and Internationals. We further discussed Union dues and Union access that was countered by CU Admin.
We are closer to an agreement on Vacations, Holidays, and some provisions for International Employees, and Union Dues.
There is still significant disagreement on certain key issues. We demand a fair contract that improves our working conditions, with increases in salaries and other economic benefits, which must include institutional support and does not only weigh on research grants. CU Admin must put a more reasonable compensation package on the table!
Only if we are united will we have the CU Admin move towards our direction. We need to escalate our actions, and make our majority support visible to CU Admin.

Here’s a recap of the May 31st bargaining session:

As usual, the CU Admin team was late. That’s no news.

We presented our non-economic proposal counters moving closer to an agreement:
- Vacation: Only for Postdocs/ARSs with less than 3 years at CU, cap at 23 days for unused paid days of vacation. Everyone else preserves current status.
- Holidays: Juneteenth will be a new holiday, President’s Day will be removed and replaced by an additional personal day for CUIMC workers.
- International Employees: We accept their language on introducing a committee with Admin and Union representatives that will meet 3 times a year to discuss Internationals issues. We continued the discussion on Visa, and the international support fund.
- Union Dues: We accepted some of their changes and opposed the Union shop, which will make Union representation optional.
- Union Access, Rights and Activity: We accepted that the Union orientation won’t be mandatory, and insisted on CU providing more info about the Union to new Postdocs and ARSs.

Next, the CU Admin presented non-economic proposals in response to ours:
- Union Dues: They accepted our language on Union dues removing the possibility of an open shop. That’s a win!
- Appointments: We insisted that CU Admin should provide material on the Union with the appointment letter. They’re refusing!
- Discharge and Discipline: CU Admin is accepting to give to the Union copies of the Employee’s performance review, when requested by the Employee. However, they are NOT accepting that in case of discharge, they will provide access to the material of investigation.
- Grievance and Arbitration: On the proposed Arbitrators, CU Admin accepted our suggestion and we accepted their suggestion.
- Workplace and Materials: We want language in the contract on gender neutral bathrooms. Instead, CU Admin wants us to just acknowledge the AMAZING job that the University has been doing on LGBTQ+ issues, and recognize how they are leaders in the city and the state (“pioneers!”).