August 14th, 10:00 AM @ Studebaker (Manhatanville), Room 469

Informal Organizing Committee notes

ARTICLE 2: APPOINTMENTS – Tentatively Agreed

  • We’ve successfully finalized Art 2, a significant improvement for Fellows’ rights. ✊️✊️ This allows us to enforce that postdocs whose salary is funded by a Fellowship are only classified as independent contractors (i.e receive a stipend) if the agency requires it.
  • Side Letter for Art. 2: We’re not thrilled with the title/recognition article. Our contract only mentions the titles covered by the union and references CU Faculty’s Handbook (which they can change at will) which means that technically CU could start appointing workers to a new title to perform our duties. For the sake of moving contract negotiations forward, we tentatively agreed. Although we lack concrete evidence that CU is attempting to carve out our unit, it’s crucial that we remain vigilant to ensure that new titles aren’t exploited to strip postdocs/ARSs of their union rights.

ARTICLE 4: CHILDCARE: 

  • Finally, the university presented calculations showing the tax advantage of the FSA account over the lump sum for childcare that our colleagues at SWC have. 
  • We modified our proposal to keep the FSA account but with an extended age eligibility of 13 years and an additional $5,500 for any additional child. 
  • CU Admin response? rejects the age increase and additional per-child support, and only increases the FSA benefit by $1000 (to a total of $5,000 per family) 😤

ARTICLE 3: BENEFITS

  • The university is adamant about not providing a housing stipend. However, they’re considering some kind of bonus (likely a one time upon ratification). 
  • They modify their Hardship Support Fund increasing the amount to a total of $500,000 for a five year contract and agree to the Union and OPA to evaluate the usage of the fund at the end of each academic year. 

ARTICLE 5: COMPENSATION

  • They are reevaluating their salary offer to recognize seniority. 
  • They will likely reject the lump sum COLA adjustment offering a flat 3% increase per year. 

ARTICLE 29: CONTRACT DURATION

  • The University is currently proposing a 5 year contract term, an attempt to delay future improvements.
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