In their “comprehensive” offer two weeks ago, Columbia rejected several of our proposals and made minor economic movements, while neglecting to engage on important workplace rights like job security and non-discrimination protections. As a whole, their new offer still fell far short of addressing the most pressing challenges postdocs/ARS face. Since then, we have worked on a response that re-asserts our priorities while making reasonable movement and agreements where possible.

In our 9th bargaining session this past Monday, we responded to their offer with a package proposal of our own in an attempt to continue making progress toward an agreement before our contract expires on June 30th, five days from today. Proposing this in the form of a package allows us to retain the right to make different proposals in the future, including reasserting positions we previously proposed, should Columbia not accept the package. We spent most of Monday’s session discussing and walking Columbia through the offer.

We fully reasserted our proposals on Parking & Transportation, Vacations, Union Access, Rights & Activity, pending further information and reasoning from Columbia. Here is a breakdown of where we made movement as part of the package:

  • Compensation: We proposed a minimum salary scale starting at $85,000 for postdocs and $104,000 for ARS, with 4% anniversary raises, and reasserted language that would ensure time spent as Postdoc Fellow counts toward the two-year waiting period for the retirement benefit.

  • Housing: We reasserted our previous language around expanding access to Columbia postdoc housing and improving transparency while proposing to not include the housing stipend, making clear this movement depends on Columbia providing economic support in other areas of the contract to address the extreme housing burden postdocs/ARS face in NYC.

  • Appointments: We reasserted much of our previous proposal while including narrow exceptions for reappointments shorter than one year related to funding and work authorization, and proposed additional compensation be provided to any postdoc/ARS who is placed on a short reappointment to account for the precarity and stress that comes with that instability.

  • International Employees: We reasserted much of our previous proposal while agreeing to alter and consolidate language around visa sponsorship and support from the ISSO in an attempt to address considerations raised by the ISSO in a previous session, and proposed 12 days of visa renewal leave.

  • Non-Discrimination: We proposed having the right to grieve (appeal to a neutral third party arbitrator) when postdoc/ARS facing discrimination or harassment are not provided with sufficient interim measures. We also proposed to include the University’s new definition of bullying in the contract with a clear timeline for the process to address bullying.

  • Childcare: We fully reasserted our language to increase the Childcare FSA to the federal cap of $7,500 and proposed to not include language memorializing the current backup care program should Columbia accept this offer.

  • Hardship Support Fund: We proposed $2,500,000 for the Hardship Fund with a disbursement amount of $7,500 per postdoc/ARS and agreed to broaden what can be covered to “appointment-related expenses” after hearing from Columbia that this would cover immigration related expenses.

  • Leaves of Absence: We proposed increasing parental leave to 12 weeks without our previously proposed language on sick leave in response to considerations about other forms of medical leave provided to postdocs/ARS.

In the session, Columbia’s team continued to insist we focus negotiations solely on compensation, though suggested some movement could be made on workplace rights and protections. They also insisted on comparing Columbia to institutions outside of New York City rather than peer institutions within the city that are outpacing Columbia on both compensation and workplace rights, like Mount Sinai and Weill Cornell Medicine. We emphasized that this package represents meaningful attempt to reach an fair agreement that addresses the biggest challenges postdocs/ARS face, should Columbia choose to accept.

We remain committed to reaching an agreement by June 30th, and believe that is possible if Columbia continues to join us at the bargaining table. The University has still not responded to our request for more bargaining dates before the contract expires. For now, our next scheduled bargaining session is TODAY (Thursday), June 25th at the Medical Center. Please RSVP here to join us!

Solidarity,
Ankit Roy, Biological Sciences
CPW-UAW 4100 Bargaining Committee