At last week’s membership meeting, on Tuesday, December 15th, we heard updates on and discussed a range of topics and held several votes. Below you can find more details and ways to get involved to continue building our voice as postdoctoral researchers.
Anti-Bullying Committee and Working Group
We discussed implementing the committee we negotiated in our contract to develop recommendations on a university-wide bullying policy. The committee will likely begin early in the new year and will have representatives from different campus groups. We are committed to fighting for a strong policy that builds on our contract campaign to win real protections against bullying and power-based harassment. If you would like to participate in building this campaign, please join the Anti-Bullying Working Group.
Academic Workers’ Open-letter to President-elect Biden
We also discussed and voted to endorse an open letter addressed to President-elect Biden, drafted by our unionized graduate employee colleagues at the University of California, UAW Local 2865. You can read the letter here. It calls for a range of demands to support workers, including reforming our immigration system, public funding of universities, rolling back the Trump administration’s policies on sexual harassment, and universal healthcare, among other topics. Members voted overwhelmingly to sign onto such a letter along with our union colleagues.
If you would be interested in joining a national, cross-union working group on one of the topics covered in the letter, please fill out this survey.
Columbia Tuition Strike
We heard from one of the undergraduate students organizing the tuition strike at Columbia. Over 3,000 students at Columbia are currently participating in order to protest increasing tuition costs alongside other demands, including bargaining in good faith with unions at the university. Members at the meeting voted overwhelmingly for the E-Board to draft a letter of support for the tuition strike. You can read their tuition strike pledge here: bit.ly/tuitionstrike and the letter from the E-Board here.
UAW Community Action Program
One of the reasons we formed our union was to have a bigger voice in political decisions that affect us as researchers. We will soon begin discussions with our fellow UAW Locals in New York about which candidates to support in upcoming elections and which broad political goals to fight for. If you are interested in helping shape the political positions our Local Union take, send us an email at columbiapostdoctunion@gmail.com
Progress on Steward Elections
Our Elections Committee reported the results from the stewards election. Sixteen stewards were elected by acclamation so far and there is one contested election in CUMC District 5 (which includes Allan Rosenfield Building, 60 Haven Avenue, Neurological Institute of New York, Lawrence C. Kolb Research Annex and New York State Psychiatric Institute), through this Wednesday, December 23, at 12pm (noon). If you work in this district you should have received an online ballot with which to vote. If you have not, please reach out to the Elections Committee at cpwuawelections@gmail.com.
If you have any work-related issues or grievances, please reach out to the steward(s) from your district or fill out our workplace issue form here.
Please reach out if you have any questions,
CPW-UAW Local 4100 Executive Board