Our Timeline

Our contract was hard fought and hard won. Our Bargaining committee pushed for the priorities established by a majority of Postdocs and ARSs during 16-month of negotiations, while our Organizing Committee along with hundreds of Postdocs and ARSs applied pressure away from the table – including published op-ed articles, petitions, delegations, phone calls to the Provost, support from New York City and New York State politicians, and most importantly one-to-one organizing leading to an Open Letter to the President and Board of Trustees calling for a Strike Authorization Vote if Columbia did not make real progress. This combined action was critical to our bargaining’s eventual success and our first contract, the first for Postdocs in a NYC institution and the first in a private university in the US. We held a picnic in Riverside Park to celebrate our success and moving into the next phase of building our Local Union: CPW-UAW Local 4100.

Our Bargaining Committee have reached a tentative agreement! After 16 months of bargaining and years of organizing we have won important improvements to our rights and working conditions. Please join us for a town hall Wed, 7/1 at 6:00pm.

Across the country, UAW Academic Workers – from Columbia, to the University of Washington, to the University of California – came together to make our voices heard in Congress about the support we need to keep our universities and research thriving in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are sending hundreds of letters to our congressional representatives to ask them to provide crucial resources to research related agencies and institutions.

In an ongoing effort to  bargain a fair first contract by April 6th 2020, we asked to Representatives Meng, Nadler, Espaillat, Ocasio-Cortez, and Lowey to support our efforts to secure a fair agreement.  

With the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak only becoming more critical, we converted our online town hall into a space to discuss how the crisis is affecting researchers, bargaining and what we can do as a union to support each other and the broader community. Postdocs and Associte Researchers continue filling out our survey in regards to how COVID19 is affecting us and our research so our elected bargaining committee can have a better understanding of how researchers are being impacted.

A delegation of researchers from our union and GWC-UAW Local 2110 Graduate Workers of Columbia, met with US Representative Grace Meng to explain our bargaining goals. Congresswoman Meng sits on the House Appropriations Committee that oversees the federal budget funding most of the research at Columbia.

Postdocs and Associate Research Scientists joined other Columbia community members at the annual Velocity Ride. We are excited to be negotiating improvements to our working conditions so that we can produce better cancer research. Better Working Conditions = Better Research!

Postdocs and Associate Researchers formed several Working Groups: Parents, Compensation, Housing, Healthcare, International Researchers and Harassment, Bullying and Discrimination, to help the Bargaining Committee analyze the feedback given in bargaining surveys filled by a majority of researchers and analyze the standards in other universities and union contracts.