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.
Our elected bargaining committee sent a letter to the administration on the management of the research program at Columbia during the COVID-19 crisis. Our bargaining committee made requests to mitigate the impact on Postdoctoral and Associate Research Scientists.
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.
On Friday March 13th, 2020 our elected bargaining committee sent this letter to the Columbia Board of Trustees to communicate our willingness to continue to bargain a fair agreement, either in person or virtually, before the April 6th deadline.
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.
Columbia’s lagging compensation practices undermine quality research. We delivered a letter from researchers spanning the entire Columbia community to Provost Katznelson and Dean Goldman urging the administration to do better.
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!
On May 20th, representatives of both CPW-UAW and GWC-UAW delivered a letter signed by a majority of Postdocs, Associate Researchers and Graduate Workers calling on Columbia to negotiate with us a for union contract that includes stronger and enforceable protections against harassment and discrimination, as this strong demonstration of support by a majority of academic workers at Columbia confirms.
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.
On February 25th, our Bargaining Committee sat down for the first time with Columbia’s administration and presented our bargaining goals, strongly ratified by 98% of CPW-UAW members. This is an undeniable milestone in our history to negotiate for improved and more secure conditions to do our research.