Bargaining Sessions Update

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Monday June 29, 2020

With our June 30 deadline looming, we have been tirelessly negotiating with Columbia to resolve our differences and come to a fair agreement (There’s still time to sign the open letter demanding a fair contract).After substantial effort to find workable compromises on protections against discrimination and harassment, Columbia again took a hard line on timeliness, continuing to present a major obstacle to finishing a contract article critical to an overall fair agreement. In the last few days, we have made essential progress on discrimination and harassment protections. For example, the University has now agreed that all discrimination and harassment complaints may be appealed to a neutral arbitrator, despite concerns regarding the Trump administration’s new Title IX regulations. However, Columbia again rejected our proposal to have the right to appeal unresolved non-Title IX complaints to arbitration after 60 days. The University has acknowledged that historically, the majority of complaints have been resolved in 60 days, and that this is the timeline the Columbia EOAA office aspires to. We have even agreed to grant University requests for an extension where warranted. We believe this is a very reasonable timeline. But the administration team still insists on an additional automatic extra 30 days. A fair process takes time, but an untimely process can never be fair. We continue this fight tomorrow and will keep you posted. This is a high priority for protecting researchers across campus.

In solidarity,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Friday June 26, 2020

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Thursday June 25, 2020

In our latest bargaining session yesterday, we exchanged more proposals on Compensation, Non-Discrimination, Leaves of Absence and Union Security. We made small progress on Compensation, but still have significant differences on that topic as well as others. As we still have a number of obstacles, nearly 200 postdoc and associate researchers have now signed a letter telling the administration that if we don’t have a fair agreement by June 30, they will ask the bargaining committee to call a strike authorization vote–please feel free to add your name here.

The bulk of our discussions today revolved around the following topics:

1. Compensation and benefits: We gave the university a new proposal that combined significant increases to minimum salaries with provisions to ensure increased compensation for all researchers. The University’s latest proposal included a new 2% lump sum payment for all researchers that would happen when the contract goes into effect, in addition to their newly proposed minimums of $60,000 for Postdocs and $66,100 for ARS and additional minimum 2% increase at every reappointment starting in 2021. While the new lump sum was a small step forward, we will continue to fight for more robust yearly increases and increases for those who would not benefit from the new minimum salary rates. The University also continues to firmly oppose any improved benefits beyond what all officers receive.
2. Non-discrimination: We had more discussion today in an effort to continue working through our differences on discrimination and harassment protections. We made a new proposal that attempted to incorporate some of their concerns while maintaining Postdoc and Associate Researchers’ right to a fair and timely process for achieving fair outcomes to grievance/complaint regarding discrimination and harassment. Our disagreements on this topic continue to present one of the largest obstacles to reaching an overall fair agreement. We are particularly concerned that many of Columbia’s objections to our proposals seem to be based on their desire to protect the rights of accused harassers, rather than survivors.
3. Union Security: We made modifications to our proposal for a union shop, a provision consistent with every other Columbia union contract, where all employees would share the cost of representation by paying dues or fees. The university has so far rejected this standard proposal.

If you would like to get more involved in the organizing efforts to win a fair contract, send us an email. We bargain again today and will provide further updates.

In solidarity,

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Thursday June 25, 2020

In our latest bargaining session yesterday, we exchanged more proposals on Compensation, Non-Discrimination, Leaves of Absence and Union Security. We made small progress on Compensation, but still have significant differences on that topic as well as others. As we still have a number of obstacles, nearly 200 postdoc and associate researchers have now signed a letter telling the administration that if we don’t have a fair agreement by June 30, they will ask the bargaining committee to call a strike authorization vote–please feel free to add your name here.

The bulk of our discussions today revolved around the following topics:

1. Compensation and benefits: We gave the university a new proposal that combined significant increases to minimum salaries with provisions to ensure increased compensation for all researchers. The University’s latest proposal included a new 2% lump sum payment for all researchers that would happen when the contract goes into effect, in addition to their newly proposed minimums of $60,000 for Postdocs and $66,100 for ARS and additional minimum 2% increase at every reappointment starting in 2021. While the new lump sum was a small step forward, we will continue to fight for more robust yearly increases and increases for those who would not benefit from the new minimum salary rates. The University also continues to firmly oppose any improved benefits beyond what all officers receive.
2. Non-discrimination: We had more discussion today in an effort to continue working through our differences on discrimination and harassment protections. We made a new proposal that attempted to incorporate some of their concerns while maintaining Postdoc and Associate Researchers’ right to a fair and timely process for achieving fair outcomes to grievance/complaint regarding discrimination and harassment. Our disagreements on this topic continue to present one of the largest obstacles to reaching an overall fair agreement. We are particularly concerned that many of Columbia’s objections to our proposals seem to be based on their desire to protect the rights of accused harassers, rather than survivors.
3. Union Security: We made modifications to our proposal for a union shop, a provision consistent with every other Columbia union contract, where all employees would share the cost of representation by paying dues or fees. The university has so far rejected this standard proposal.

If you would like to get more involved in the organizing efforts to win a fair contract, send us an email. We bargain again today and will provide further updates.

In solidarity,

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Tuesday June 23, 2020

Columbia made its most substantial economic proposal yet in yesterday’s bargaining session, but the University’s overall package of proposals still falls short of what we would consider a fair agreement. This is especially true in their continued effort to provide insufficient protections against discrimination and harassment.

We made significant progress in two major areas. First, we finished a tentative version of language for the Grievance and Arbitration article, the fundamental process for enforcing our agreement with the University. Second, the University made a major new Compensation proposal that would raise minimum Postdoc salaries to $60,000 effective July 1, 2020, including parity for Fellows, and raise minimum Associate Researcher salaries to $66,100.

While we recognize the significance of the University’s Compensation proposal, it would leave hundreds of researchers who are already above those minimums without any guaranteed increases in the first year of our contract and would include insufficient future increases for all researchers. While there is now an overall improvement in the economics, the University continues to simultaneously propose weak and unpredictable protections against discrimination and harassment, and appears to be introducing new arguments at the last minute to justify lengthy delays in getting to fair resolutions of complaints/grievances in this area.

We expect to be bargaining again this week and will keep you posted. If you would like to read a summary of the overall status of our negotiations, go to our website here.

Please Join us for a virtual Town Hall on Thursday, June 25 for the latest updates about where things stand, including progress made and continuing challenges, and to join the discussion about how we can show Columbia that we want a strong and fair first contract. Register here for the virtual Town Hall on Thursday, June 25th at 1:00pm.

Yesterday, UAW local 5810, (the postdoc union at UC) in conjunction with UAW local 2865 (Graduate employees at UC) hosted an immigration attorney to help explain and answer questions about the impact of President Trump’s Executive Order that suspends entry to the US for some non-immigrants. You can watch a recording of the information session here. Please reach out to columbiapostdocunion@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns.

In solidarity,

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June 12 and 17, 2020

As Columbia proceeds toward a fuller research ramp-up, the administration bargaining team continues to resist certain improvements for Postdoc and Associate Researchers who make up a substantial core of the research workforce. While the CPW-UAW bargaining committee continues to work in good faith in an effort to find a way to reach a fair agreement by the end of this month, the administration’s intransigence in certain areas, as well as their approach to the negotiations, present major obstacles.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO GET MORE INVOLVED IN FIGHTING FOR A FAIR CONTRACT!

While you can read a summary of substantive differences further below, we also want to share a glimpse of how the Columbia administration and its lawyers approach the negotiation process, so you all have a better sense of the obstacles we face in completing negotiations for a fair first agreement. Here is one example from a recent session.

CPW-UAW “A fair, timely process for discrimination and harassment is a huge priority for us.”

Columbia “We will not debate this topic anymore.”

Most of us have never come this directly in contact with this side of Columbia University. We expect substantive differences, but we also expect a respectful approach to negotiating with a workforce that helps bring prestige and roughly $1 Billion per year to this university in research grants and contracts.

We nevertheless continue to make some progress in our sessions. For example, we have come close to agreeing on a fair grievance and arbitration process to enforce our future contract provisions. While we still have to agree on the specifics of handling discrimination and harassment grievances, this is important progress since the Grievance and Arbitration article is one of the most important articles in a union contract. For a summary of the major outstanding disputes in our negotiations see below.

Compensation: While the University has offered significant increases to minimum salaries (12.3% to 13.9%) over the next 13 months, their proposal still fails to establish equity for Fellows, and does nothing to ensure fair increases for those already above the minimums or who have provided long term research service to Columbia.

Non-Discrimination: The University continues to reject provisions that would ensure a fair and timely process for survivors to address instances of sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination. Their proposal mostly makes only cosmetic changes to the existing process, which can take months to complete. Most importantly Columbia still insists that a survivor must go through the entire internal University process before even being able to appeal a dispute to a neutral arbitrator.

Leaves of Absence: The University continues to propose that an employee would be entitled to five weeks of fully-paid parental leave after one year of employment. Our proposal is that an employee would be entitled to eight weeks of fully-paid parental leave at the outset of employment.

Benefits: The University continues to propose that it retain the right to change benefits whenever it chooses, though they say they have no intention of doing so.

Effective Union Representation: Consistent with every other union contract at Columbia, we have proposed a union shop, a fair provision where all employees would be obligated to share the cost of representation by paying dues or fees. A union shop is the best way to ensure that we have adequate resources to engage in effective representation into the future. The University has rejected this very standard proposal.

We will bargain again next week and hope to have more news to report. In the meantime, please get involved and help fight for a fair contract!

March for Science NYC Fireside Chats: A Three-Part Series on Racism in STEM

March for Science NYC is dedicating their next three discussions to the topic of racism in STEM. If you are interested in participating in any of these chats, please sign up on the eventbrite link above to receive the zoom information.

Tomorrow is Juneteenth. Here are two ways to support Black Lives Matter protests in NYC.

Low Steps at Columbia at 8:46am to join with our UAW siblings across the country in 8 minutes 46 seconds of silence to honor George Floyd and other Black victims of police violence. You will also be able to join this event remotely on Zoom for those not currently able to attend protests in person.

Northwest corner of Foley Square at 1:30pm (Lafayette and Worth St). We will merge into the protest that has been called at City Hall by the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL).

In solidarity,

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June 5 and 9, 2020

Postdoc and Associate Researchers speak out on discrimination, harassment and bullying

Columbia must do better. While we are still negotiating modest progress on a number of issues, the Columbia administration team nevertheless continues to threaten to take back proposed economic improvements if we do not reach agreement by the end of the fiscal year when the University plans to impose COVID-related salary freezes on many other employees—a clear effort to pressure larger compromises on some of our core priorities around equity and inclusion.

We would also like to reach a fair agreement by the end of the month, but it is appalling that Columbia continues use the COVID-19 crisis to threaten to deny us long-overdue compensation improvements—especially when they do so in an effort to pressure us into agreeing to weaker protections against discrimination and harassment and provisions that would weaken our long-term voice as researchers. See below for a fuller bargaining update from our June 5 and June 8 sessions.

Despite Columbia’s disturbing approach to some of the core priority issues, we have made more progress toward resolving some of the important articles. As part of one of our packages, we finished language for the Union Access, Rights and Activity article. We also continue to move closer to resolving Grievance and Arbitration, Leaves of Absence, and Management Rights.

Some obstacles remain on core priority issues. In yesterday’s session, for example, Columbia administrators made very clear they still want to maintain as many limits as possible on the rights of survivors to address instances of alleged discrimination and harassment in a fair and timely manner. We explained what the experience of a researcher would be like to take on a grievance/complaint about harassment, and why a timely process is so important for the survivor and for research. In response, the Columbia lawyers essentially said that faced with the possibility of neutral arbitration, the University would devote substantial billable legal hours to defending the University against such allegations, rather than devoting energy to fairly resolving the problem problem. This total inability to view the problem of discrimination and harassment from the perspective of the survivor is the root of the problem at universities like Columbia.

Columbia also continues to reject proposals ensuring that all researchers receive fair pay increases, adequate access to paid parental leave, and that we have a strong voice through our union moving forward.

Let’s be clear. Roughly six weeks ago, the CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee collapsed our outstanding proposals into three packages with a variety of practical, conditional compromises intended to create a viable pathway to an overall fair agreement. We remain confident we can reach an agreement on our hopeful timeline, but Columbia will need to put more serious proposals on the table. We will bargain again on Friday and will keep you posted.

In solidarity,

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Monday June 1, 2020

In our latest bargaining session Monday, we continued to make modest progress on some of the core non-economic issues remaining in our ongoing negotiations. We would again like to thank all the postdoc and associate researchers who have stepped up in recent weeks to amplify our bargaining demands, including reaching out to administrators and elected leader allies from around New York City. Please expect to do more in the coming days as we continue to move toward the research ramp-up. See fuller bargaining update below.

In sadness and outrage at the horrific murder of George Floyd, our bargaining committee also released a statement of solidarity with Black communities and against anti-Black violence. We believe that one of our fundamental purposes as a union is to use our collective voice to fight all forms of bigotry, racism and other forms of oppression and to work towards a more inclusive and equitable community inside and outside the walls of Columbia.

CPW-UAW Bargaining June 1, 2020

Columbia continues to condition any pay increases for next year on reaching agreement before the end of June. While we question the legitimacy and basis for that position, both bargaining committees have expressed a mutual desire to reach agreement in the next month. It is therefore critical that we make consistent progress as we move forward. While progress was made, Monday also showed that Columbia needs to pick up the pace on meeting some of our core demands on protections for survivors of discrimination and harassment, fair compensation, and our rights to effective representation during the life of our contract.

Most of our discussion Monday revolved around Package 2 of our outstanding proposals: the University presented a revised and improved proposal on Grievance and Arbitration, perhaps the most important article in a first union contract, which lays out the procedure by which we enforce rights and protections we have negotiated in other articles; we exchanged proposals on and came very close to resolving the Union Rights article; we presented new counter proposals on Management Rights and Union Security to the University; and we had brief discussion of the outstanding flaws in the University’s Non-Discrimination proposal. We also had a lengthy discussion about the problems in the University’s standing Compensation proposal.

In short, we continue to face several problematic positions from Columbia on major issues that are blocking our ability to reach a fair, full agreement.

• Compensation: Columbia continues to propose that minimum salaries lag behind most other NYC institutions in the short term, that hundreds of researchers receive no guaranteed increase until at least July 2021, and no increases for long term service.
• Non-Discrimination: while Columbia has acknowledged that their investigatory process can take too long, they still have refused to agree to any language ensuring a timely process for those who need it.
• Union versus management rights during the contract: Columbia continues to make proposals that would give them an unusually robust ability to challenge our right to take grievances to neutral arbitration and continues to oppose our proposal for union security, where out of fairness all unit members share the cost of representation to ensure adequate resources for engaging in effective representation into the future.

We will be bargaining again on Friday and will be in touch again soon.

In solidarity,

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Monday May 18, 2020

Recent Postdoc and Associate Researcher actions appear to have had some positive effect on Columbia’s approach to our negotiations and desire to reach an agreement in the near future, as well as their responses to more immediate concerns on COVID-19. However, yesterday’s session also made it clear that we will need to demonstrate our priorities even more strongly if we want to achieve the kind of fair agreement we deserve on an acceptable timeline – especially when it comes to stronger protections against discrimination and harassment. See our latest bargaining update below.

The recent positive shift in Columbia’s position is certainly thanks to the many Postdoc and Associate Researchers who have taken action to elevate our collective voice over the past several weeks. Hundreds of us have signed an open letter to the Provost demanding a fair contract, participated in our whiteboard campaign, and urged Congress to support science and research funding as we continue through and transition out of the COVID-19 crisis. There is power in numbers, so please let us know if you can join us in other actions moving forward!

Bargaining Update May 18, 2020

First, after repeated recent discussions regarding researchers’ health and safety rights during the pending ramp-up, the University informed us that they will be announcing a COVID-19 “research ambassadors” program so that concerned individuals may raise complaints without fear of retaliation. The administration team said the details of this program would be announced this week.

The administration team also finally responded – partially – to our recent presentation of three major package proposals intended to establish a pathway to a fair agreement. Columbia restored most of its pre-COVID-19 compensation proposal on the condition that we reach an agreement by June 30, and made another move in our direction on paid parental leave. However, they made only minimal movement on stronger, more timely protections against discrimination, harassment and bullying, and did not change their proposals on other important outstanding issues. While overall these changes are in the right direction, we know Columbia can do better.

We remain committed to achieving a fair contract that provides competitive compensation for Postdocs and Associate Researchers, enables us to engage in effective representation of our rights in the workplace, and strengthens equity and inclusion in our research community. Below is the latest status of our package proposals.

Package 1 – The major remaining dispute in this package is paid parental leave. We have proposed eights weeks of fully-paid leave for new parents, available upon appointment and contract ratification, whereas Columbia has now offered five weeks, available after one year of employment and starting on January 1, 2021.

Package 2 – This package (Non-Discrimination, Grievance and Arbitration, Union Rights, Union Security, Management Rights, and No Strikes/No Lockouts. Our Non-Discrimination) includes the largest number of outstanding issues. After making significant moves to address the administration’s concerns in our last Non-Discrimination proposal, Columbia still offered only minimal new language to address our proposal for timely access to a neutral arbitrator if necessary. Columbia also did not change its position on many other outstanding issues in this package that bear on our ability to have a strong, effective voice through our union into the future.

Package 3 – Columbia restored previous proposals for significant increases to minimum salaries for Postdoc and Associate Researchers. But their proposal would still leave us behind peer institutions until at least July 2021, does not achieve full equity for Postdoctoral Research Fellows, and lacks fair increases for those above the minimums and for long term employees. Furthermore, Postdoctoral and Associate researchers whose salaries are above the new proposed minimum would not be eligible for a salary increase until July 2021.

We will bargain again next week Wednesday and will keep you posted as we keep moving forward.

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Wednesday April 30, 2020

Please Sign our Letter to the Admin Demanding a Fair Contract

We clearly need to send a stronger message to the Columbia administration to reach agreement on a fair contract.

The Columbia team came to our Thursday session with virtually no new proposals—even though more than a week had passed since we presented a substantial set of proposals intended to offer fair compromises and a pathway to an overall fair agreement. We deserve better.

Postdoc and Associate Researchers play a critical, front-line role carrying out the prestigious research that brings roughly $1 Billion per year into the University budget for our pay and benefits and the campus infrastructure. Now we do essential work on COVID-19 research and holding the critical aspects of research labs together amidst social distancing. Hundreds of us have stepped up to volunteer to help Columbia play a proactive role in taking on COVID-19 in one of its global epicenters. Many of us have also now taken time to reach out to Congress urging that they invest in Columbia and other research universities moving through and coming out of the COVID-19 crisis.

In short, we play a central role in making Columbia research happen. Yet, Columbia continues to propose a contract that significantly undervalues our work and would make only limited improvements to our basic voice in the workplace and power to address discrimination, harassment and bullying.

Despite the sparse overall response to our previous proposals, we did make some progress on the grievance procedure, as Columbia made a proposal that would help establish a more efficient process for resolving disputes under our contract. While a number of more major issues remain in the grievance and arbitration article, we continue to move closer to a satisfactory resolution on that topic.

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Wednesday April 22, 2020

Compared to last week, when Columbia’s team withdrew proposed salary increases and accused us of wasting time during the COVID-19 crisis (even though hundreds of us have been volunteering to help address the crisis), we had a much more pleasant bargaining session on Wednesday.   We made a serious effort in this week’s session to find a viable pathway to a fair overall agreement, and hope the administration team comes back with a fair set of proposals next time. But that is up to the University administration.

Given the shrinking number of issues in dispute, the CPW-UAW committee gave Columbia three package proposals that cover all the outstanding bargaining topics. In a package proposal, we propose more moderate provisions in certain areas on the condition that the University agree to our priorities in other areas. We hope that by combining the topics into a small number of packages, our committee and the University can more efficiently reach a fair overall agreement that incorporates priorities for both sides.

We remain committed to achieving a fair contract that provides competitive compensation for Postdocs and Associate Researchers, enables us to engage in effective representation of our rights in the workplace and strengthens equity and inclusion in our research community.

Package 1 includes Recognition, Appointments, Holidays, Vacation, Leaves, International Researcher Rights, and Professional Development. This package is the closest to overall agreement, with the most significant dispute remaining in the article covering paid parental leave. While we have made progress on establishing the right to additional paid parental leave, we still believe the University can and should do better on this issue that would advance gender equity.

Package 2 includes Non-Discrimination, Grievance and Arbitration, Union Rights, Union Security, Management Rights, and No Strikes/No Lockouts. Our Non-Discrimination proposal is obviously a major priority for Postdoc and Associate Researchers, but so far the University has failed to adequately address some of the key concerns we have in this area around timeliness, access to representation and protection from retaliation, and bullying. The University has adamantly resisted policy changes that apply to a single group of employees. They proposed a University-wide working group, which would include Union representatives, to recommend new policies for the whole University addressing “potentially abusive or intimidating behavior.” Our package includes a version of this that requires the University to adopt these new policies. This package also includes all of the foundational articles that would establish our ability to have a strong, effective union and clarify the University’s rights during the life of our first contract.

Package 3 covers Compensation, as well as Health Insurance and other benefits. In this package, we made clear to Columbia that we would be willing to drop our original proposal to enhance benefits in a number of areas if we have agreement on fair compensation increase for all Postdocs, including Postdoctoral Research Fellows. We continue to believe that, given the unique funding structures for our positions, it does not make sense to apply the salary freeze to Postdocs and Associate Researchers. We will continue to fight for fair compensation that reflects the value we bring to this institution.

Look out for opportunities to help send Columbia a message to finish a fair contract! If you are interested in helping or have feedback, contact us at columbiapostdocunion@gmail.com.

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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April 16 and 17, 2020

Read the CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee letter urging Congress to increase research funding

After several sessions where we believed we were building momentum toward agreement on a fair contract, Columbia has now moved backwards. The Columbia administration team started off our negotiations late last week by withdrawing the July 1, 2020, pay increases they proposed previously, which they said was necessary due to the University budget crisis created by COVID-19.

Their disturbing new proposal does maintain the new rates they previously proposed for July 2021, which would represent significant increases to minimum salaries a little over one year from now: 12.3% for Postdoctoral Research Fellows, 12.6% for Associate Researchers, and 13.9% for Postdoctoral Research Scientist/Scholars. But their proposal also still only makes partial progress on ensuring equal compensation for Postdoctoral Fellows and still does not offer any meaningful improvement for long term researchers.

We understand the COVID-19 crisis has created major administration concerns regarding the university budget. Just hours before giving us their regressive compensation proposal, Columbia officially announced a hiring and salary freeze for most employee groups. However, we also understand that the funding sources for Postdoc and Associate Researchers distinguish us from most other Columbia employees. For example, unlike most Columbia employees, salaries and stipends for most of us are funded directly by external grants and/or fellowships. Moreover, we also know that Columbia is currently joining most other major universities across the US to demand that the US Congress allocate huge increases in federal research funding, which would bring more, not less, money into Columbia’s research budget. Another important factor is that Columbia has already fallen behind other major NYC universities by 1-2 years in increasing minimum salaries for postdocs and ARSs. Overall, with external grants funding most of our salaries/stipends and NIH having already proposed increased minimums for 2020, it makes little sense to penalize us by not even catching up to minimums at our peer institutions.

Second, the University not only moved backwards on compensation, last week they took an increasingly aggressive tone on non-economic issues as well and even threatened to take more money off the table if we do not reach agreement quickly. For example, they articulated rigid positions on some of the core non-economic topics like our Grievance and Arbitration procedure and Non-Discrimination. Though we would also like to reach agreement quickly, we objected vociferously to this effort by the administration to leverage the current COVID-19 crisis to force us to compromise on non-economic issues of great import to Postdocs and Associate Researchers.

This approach by university administrators, many of whom are totally out of touch with what we do on a daily basis, is highly objectionable. We will nevertheless keep working to find ways to reach an overall agreement that we believe is fair. We will bargain again this week and will report back.

We would be happy to hear your thoughts and feedback. Please reach out at columbiapostdocunion@gmail.com.

Also, many Postdocs and Associate Research Scientists have been submitting whiteboard testimonials to help contribute to the many voices of why we want a fair contract. Check out the examples and submit one of your own.

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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April 7, 2020

Follow the CPW-UAW FB Page as we fight to finish a fair contract!

After meeting again with the Columbia administration team last week, we have another brief update on COVID-19 issues, as well as our continued negotiations for our first contract. Our last bargaining session is summarized below.

COVID-19-related updates.

We had further discussion with the administration regarding the effects of COVID-19 on Postdoc and Associate Researchers. Since a number of researchers had raised concerns regarding recent Columbia communications regarding potential redeployment plans, we requested clarification on that topic.

Columbia told us that, due in large part to the substantial numbers of volunteers, they did not envision a need for or have any plans to redeploy Postdoc and Associate Researchers. In response to concerns about health and safety of those who do volunteer, the University reiterated that they are working hard with the hospital to ensure that everyone has the necessary training and personal protective equipment. Related to some of our other questions, the International Students and Scholars Office (ISSO) urged all international researchers to contact their office for guidance on visa rules regarding volunteering. During the course of our conversation at the bargaining table, administrators on the University team expressed great gratitude for the number of volunteers who have been stepping up in recent weeks.

While we had a productive discussion of these issues, we want to remind all researchers to contact us immediately if you have any concerns related to the current COVID-19 crisis.

Latest bargaining update. We definitely felt we achieved a little momentum in our negotiations last week, which we hope to build on as we continue to work through what continue to be a number of significant differences on some of our core priority proposals.

Most importantly, we finally started to make some new progress on some of the proposals that will help us establish and maintain a strong union beyond these contract negotiations. In particular, we made progress on Grievance and Arbitration and on Union Access and Rights. The Grievance and Arbitration article is one of the more important provisions in our negotiations since it lays out the process to enforce our rights under the contract, including access to a neutral arbitrator if necessary. Our Union Access and Rights article is important because it is one of the articles that can help ensure that the Union has relevant information and access to new employees, as well as resources, necessary for a strong and representative union. However, while the University made the most responsive proposals so far on these topics, they continue to propose certain unusual provisions that would place limitations on our ability to enforce our rights and represent ourselves that do not exist for the other unions at Columbia. We hope to make more progress on these topics this week.

We also had somewhat productive discussions on Professional Development. The University finally gave us a counterproposal on this topic and we moved closer to agreement on an article committing the University to maintain support for professional development programs, as well as establishing the right of researchers to develop an Individual Development Plan (IDP) with feedback from their supervisor and to receive at least one written performance review each year.

We have bargaining sessions scheduled on Thursday and Friday this week and will keep you posted on our progress.

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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April 1 and 3, 2020

The CPW-UAW bargaining committee continues working toward a fair agreement–see our latest bargaining update is below.

We want to start by acknowledging all the Postdoc/Associate Researchers and many others across Columbia who continue to devote themselves to aiding our community through the COVID-19 crisis in numerous ways. Thank you. We also remind everyone to fill out our COVID-19 survey so we can continue to monitor and potentially help address related workplace challenges. As we all consider how to respond in this extraordinary time, and as the University increases redeployment plans, we encourage everyone to share thoughts and questions. If you have immediate concerns, please email us at columbiapostdocunion@gmail.com.

Bargaining update from April 1 and 3

We met twice last week with the Columbia administration bargaining team. Though we continued to make progress overall, the increasing magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis certainly adds new considerations for our negotiations and timeline. It is now clear, for example, that we will continue negotiating past April 6, so we have started scheduling more sessions deeper into April.

While both sides are committed to continued negotiations, the administration team has increasingly started pointing to the crisis as a basis for taking a hard line on some recently discussed issues. They’re also hinting at future uncertainty regarding some of the economic issues involved in bargaining. We certainly share a strong desire to finish negotiations in a timely manner, but it will still take significant movement by Columbia on some of the core disputes.

After last week, we are very close to finalizing our International Researchers article. We are also close to agreement on Appointments and have finalized language covering Vacation, both of which are contingent on resolving our Paid Leaves article as part of an ongoing package proposal. We also moved somewhat closer to agreement on Union Rights, though the University continues to propose that our union be treated differently than other unions on campus when it comes to access to resources to enable effective representation.

Overall, the administration’s approach continues to present some major obstacles to an overall agreement. For example:

• Though we finally had a somewhat meaningful discussion on Professional Development last week, the University has so far made no counter proposal on that topic, even though we made our original proposal more than six months ago.
• The University has made no new counter proposals on Non-Discrimination in nearly four months, failing to address numerous core components of that article that would enhance researchers’ rights under our contract
• The University continues to propose grievance and arbitration procedures that would hinder our ability to enforce our rights efficiently and elevate the university’s over-reliance on outside lawyers
• At times, the University reverts to a dismissive approach to our proposals. For example, in response to our continued concerns about potential abusive use of short appointment offers, the University responded, “What are you going to do, turn down the job because it’s too short?” While this kind of condescending and dismissive attitude hinders productive bargaining conversations, it serves as a potent reminder of the very reason an overwhelming majority of us voted to unionize in the first place.
• The University also continues to evade providing basic information we requested one month ago that would enable us to more effectively evaluate their position on economic bargaining topics.

With your support behind us, we will continue to work through these challenges. Given that we have narrowed the overall number of disputes in recent sessions, we remain optimistic that we can reach a fair agreement in the near future. Let us know if you have any questions.

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Friday March 27, 2020

First, we want to give a shout out and thanks to all the Postdoc and Associate Researchers, as well as other members of our community, who are stepping up as volunteers to help with the COVID-19 crisis. The response to this crisis has been truly uplifting. See below for opportunities to get involved if you are interested.

Thanks also to everyone who has filled out the CPW-UAW COVID-19 Survey. Based on feedback from researchers across campus, we sent a letter communicating numerous concerns to the Columbia administration last week. We expect to continue discussing these and other concerns with the administration as the pandemic continues to evolve. In the immediate term, if you believe you are being required to report to work on campus in violation of the COVID-19 “essential research” guidelines, please fill out the CPW-UAW survey or email us.

Bargaining Update from 3/27/20

The bargaining committee continues working to bring the negotiations for our first contract to a successful conclusion. In our latest bargaining session on Friday, we made some more progress in a number of areas. Columbia’s increasing willingness to find common ground has been encouraging in recent sessions, but they will still need to increase their pace even more in order to achieve our goal of reaching a fair agreement in a timely manner.

In Friday’s session, we made meaningful progress on roughly a half dozen contract articles. We are very close to agreement on language covering Union Recognition and International Researcher Rights. We also moved closer to agreement on Appointments and Vacation, which would ultimately be contingent on reaching agreement on our package proposal also covering paid family and other leaves of absence. Finally, we started making more progress on proposals covering Union Rights and Grievance and Arbitration, key provisions that would enable researchers to maintain a strong and effective union during the life of our first contract—but Columbia still needs to move much farther toward fair agreements in this area.

While we are making increasing progress overall, Columbia’s team is still moving slowly on many of the core issues and other aspects of the negotiations that hinder the pace of progress. For example, they have failed thus far to provide any response to an important request for information we submitted in early March that would enable us to more adequately evaluate the University position on a number of our proposals covering economic benefits. They have also failed to offer any counter proposal to our proposal covering Professional Development, even though we made this proposal more than six months ago.

We have more sessions scheduled this week. Thanks to all the researchers who have recently written to our elected representatives in Congress asking for their support in our efforts to win a fair agreement. Click here to sign up for other opportunities to help us win a fair contract!

COVID-19 Related Volunteer Opportunities

Currently, there is an effort to coordinate Postdoctoral and Associate Research Scientist who would like to volunteer with COVID-19 related efforts. The Columbia Researchers Against COVID-19 (The CRAC Team) was formed to coordinate connecting volunteers with a number of research groups, and projects to suit their interests and abilities. Please sign up here if you are interested.

There are also current efforts to try and help facilitate childcare (babysitters) for front line healthcare workers at Columbia during this crisis. They are not specifically looking for students/postdocs – anyone in the community is also welcome – though they are hoping to start with people with experience they can back up with a reference. Positions will be based on geographic location to minimize travel and cost.

If anyone is interested, or knows anyone who would be interested, please fill out this link.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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March 18 and 23, 2020

Thanks to everyone who has filled out the CPW-UAW survey on the impact of COVID-19 in our workplace. The feedback suggests that, overall, researchers and the Columbia administration have moved swiftly to adapt to the rapidly-evolving and unprecedented conditions created by the pandemic. It has been very encouraging, for example, to see how many members of our research community have stepped up to offer various types of help in addressing the crisis. One such response being organized is to support front line healthcare workers with childcare. Please see the bottom of the email if you are in a position to offer support.

We have nevertheless communicated and had a productive initial conversation with the administration about some concerns that have been raised regarding potentially uneven implementation of some of the health and safety protocols. We reiterated that the administration more clearly reaffirm protocols regarding what constitutes essential services, remind supervisors of the right of individual researchers to freely articulate concerns regarding their own health and safety, and to communicate any specific available information regarding potential threats of exposure in areas of the campus community. We expect to have further discussion of these matters. And if you believe you have had expectations placed upon you that endanger health and safety, please contact us immediately.

BARGAINING UPDATE

In other news, we have worked out a schedule to continue negotiations toward our first contract in this new environment. Though bargaining remotely presents new challenges, we have continued to make progress and remain hopeful that we can reach a fair agreement in a timely manner.

In our most recent sessions, we moved closer to agreement on proposals regarding International Researcher Rights, Appointments, Vacation, Grievance and Arbitration, Union Recognition and Union Rights and Access. We still have many issues to resolve, but we have now agreed on a busy schedule of sessions between now and April 7 that we believe improves the opportunity to reach agreement.

More than anything, Columbia needs to demonstrate more willingness to reach agreement on our core outstanding issues. We have made clear that we are willing to make practical compromises in a number of areas if Columbia will agree to reasonable provisions on core provisions like Non-Discrimination, full equity for Postdoctoral Research Fellows, fair and competitive pay increases for all researchers—including ling term employees, and the set of provisions that will enable is to maintain an effective union moving into the future.

Our next session is on Friday. We will report back again after that session.

CHILDCARE FOR FRONTLINE WORKERS

There are current efforts to try and help facilitate childcare (babysitters) for front line healthcare workers at Columbia during this crisis. They are not specifically looking for students/postdocs – anyone in the community is also welcome – though they are hoping to start with people with experience they can back up with a reference.

If anyone is interested, or knows anyone who would be interested, please e-mail Melissa at mmc2259@cumc.columbia.edu with the following information:

• your name and contact info
• a reference and their contact info
• your general neighborhood

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Monday March 9, 2020

With roughly four weeks to go before our April 6 deadline, we had another somewhat productive bargaining session yesterday. We reached two new tentative agreements (which would establish protections against retaliation for pursuing complaints related to the University’s Copyright, Intellectual Property, and Research Integrity policies) and made some limited new progress in our ongoing discussions on Grievance and Arbitration, Appointments and Union Rights and Access.

As we move closer to our deadline, we have many issues to resolve but remain confident we can reach a fair agreement by April 6—as long as Columbia moves more quickly. The University provided no new proposals on our economic priorities yesterday, which was disappointing. We did make some progress on a few of the core provisions that will enable us to have a strong union during the life of our first contract. We – the Bargaining Committee and researchers across Columbia – will need to continue making clear to this administration that we want and deserve a contract that reflects the tremendous value we bring to this institution and establishes robust rights and protections that will help establish a more inclusive research community. See below for more details on the last session.

Grievance and Arbitration—Columbia made an important move by making the process shorter. But the University still has a number of provisions that do not exist in any other contracts at Columbia, that would make it more tedious and difficult to efficiently enforce rights when we have disagreements under the contract. This is arguably the most important article in the contract and we intend to continue fighting to have an efficient, fair process for addressing grievances.

Appointments—We have modified our proposal to seek one-year appointments, with reasonable efforts to provide advanced notification of renewal and non-renewal. Our proposal also includes stipulations for standardizing appointment letters so that new Postdocs have a clear understanding of their new position and accessible support in their new role.

Union Rights and Access—Columbia made a new proposal on this topic for the first time in months, a positive sign in itself, but the proposal still falls far short of what we can agree to. They offered for the first time to provide a list of the bargaining unit to the union on a regular basis, but the proposal has major flaws. Their proposal also continues to lack any provision of union access to orientations so that new researchers can learn about their rights under our contract when they start work at Columbia—this basic provision exists for most other workers at Columbia and will enable us to have the strongest possible union over time.

Tentative agreement on Copyright and Intellectual Property and on Research Integrity—In these two tentative agreements, we agreed to codify coverage and rights under the University’s policies and procedures in this area. While disputes in these areas will continue to be taken up under existing policies, we negotiated a new protection against retaliation for raising complaints or otherwise participating in any of these procedures. We also agreed that the Union-Management Committee may discuss the topic of how to address authorship disputes.

Best,

The CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Thursday March 5, 2020

Please share your thoughts on bullying, harassment and discrimination at Columbia.

In our last bargaining session on Thursday, we did not reach any new tentative agreements, but had more constructive discussion around Compensation, Appointments/Reappointments, Leaves, Vacation, Intellectual Property, Grievance and Arbitration and No Strikes. At this stage, we see every session as critical time to discuss our differences and to keep working toward a satisfactory agreement. But since we do still have a number of major differences, we have asked the administration team to commit substantial time to bargaining sessions in the coming weeks so that we have sufficient time to find a path to a fair agreement by April 6. Please stay tuned for ways Postdoc and Associate researchers can get involved to help us build momentum to reach a fair first contract.

We have another bargaining session scheduled for tomorrow, March 9, and will provide a more detailed update after that session. Please rsvp here if you would like to attend.

Best,

The CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Wednesday February 26, 2020

Sign our open letter asking Congressional representatives for support!

In bargaining Wednesday, we got the first serious indication that Columbia may be starting to listen to us. We reached one more important tentative agreement (Discharge and Discipline, summarized below), and the administration team finally gave us their first economic proposals. While these new proposals fall short in a variety of ways, we believe they represent a significant new starting point from which we can finish negotiations by April 6. But we also know that, in order to ensure that the administration puts in the necessary work to do so, researchers will need to continue standing up and taking actions to communicate our priorities for a stronger, more inclusive research community here at Columbia.

The University provided new proposals on Compensation and Leaves of Absence. On Compensation, the University proposed increases of 12.3% to 13.9% to minimum rates over the next two years, as well as guaranteed annual raises of 2% to 2.5% for those at or above minimum rates. As part of this proposal, Postdoctoral Research Fellows would move closer to parity with Postdoctoral Research Scientists/Scholars but still be compensated at a lower level. On Leaves of Absence, the University made a new proposal for four weeks of fully-paid paid parental leave for researchers who have worked at Columbia for at least one full year.

While we recognize that the University made significant movement in our direction with these economic proposals, they still fall short in a number of ways. First, the increases to minimum salaries do not make up for the fact that our salaries at Columbia have lagged far behind peer institutions in New York City for at least the last couple years. Second, under Columbia’s current proposal, Fellows would still be monetarily penalized for winning an award that brings prestige and money to Columbia. Third, Columbia has totally rejected our proposal to factor years of experience into pay rates—a concept that is common for other Columbia employees and for the NIH recommended minimum salaries. Fourth, we still have concerns about the length of paid parental leave and the 1 year eligibility period for it. Finally, Columbia did not make counter proposals on a number of our other economic proposals, like child care and professional development. We expect to have much more discussion of all of these concerns in upcoming sessions.

Tentative agreement on Discharge and Discipline. This article improves job security by establishing “just cause” protections against arbitrary discipline or termination, which means the University would need to establish good cause for a researcher to be fired or disciplined. The article also establishes new rights for international researchers by committing the University to make best efforts to expedite due process in cases where termination could jeopardize visa status.

Our next session is on March 5th—please rsvp here if you would like to attend.

In solidarity,

The CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Friday February 12, 2020

Join us for a bargaining update town hall at the Lamont-Doherty Campus. Please RSVP here.

Our bargaining committee will be hosting a Town Hall at the Lamont Campus on Friday, February 21st, 1:30-2:30pm in the Gary C. Comer Geochemistry Building, Seminar Room First Floor.

In our 26th bargaining session Wednesday, we signed two more tentative agreements (Health and Safety and Job Posting) and worked to get closer to agreement on a number of other outstanding proposals. Today’s agreements represent real progress on our rights as researchers and also help narrow the overall focus of our negotiations toward our core priority issues as we get closer to our April 6 deadline for a first contract.

We have been somewhat encouraged by the pace and focus of negotiations in our last two sessions; however, the University team still has so far failed to propose any of the kinds of improvements that would accomplish the priority goals that a majority of Postdocs and Associate Researchers have supported since we started bargaining nearly one year ago.

This session reminded us that we still have obstacles in our fight for fairness, excellence and equity. For example, a top University administrator once again tried to convince us that — despite substantial contrary evidence — Columbia provides fair and competitive postdoc compensation that compares well to other New York City research institutions. The administration team also continues to resist any meaningful discussion of our proposal for paid family leave, a critical component of our effort to enhance gender equity at Columbia.

See below for more detail on today’s session and upcoming opportunities to participate in our campaign for a fair contract.

Bargaining report from February 12.

We signed two tentative agreements.

Health and Safety–This article codifies a contractual commitment by the University to follow OSHA and other standards to ensure a healthy and safe work environment, ensures that employees “will not be required to work in conditions that pose an immediate danger,” and establishes clear protections from retaliation for reporting health and safety problems. We also secured language committing the University to make reasonable efforts to address ergonomic concerns. In short, having these rights codified in our union contract improves our ability to address health and safety issues in a timely manner.

Job Posting–this article ensures that the university will continue following current policy regarding posting of available positions for Postdoctoral Research Scientists and Associate Research Scientists.

In addition to these agreements, our bargaining committee exchanged more proposals and had further discussion with Columbia on Appointments, Leaves, Intellectual Property, Union Access and Rights, Discipline and Union Security. We hope to make progress on these topics in our next session.

Regarding our overall goals, and despite their insensitive and out-of-touch comments regarding compensation, the university did indicate that they are hoping to have responses to our major economic proposals soon, hopefully by our next session. We hope that is the case so we can work diligently through March in an attempt to reach a fair agreement by April 6th.

Upcoming Sessions and Town Halls:

RSVP for the Union Town Hall at the Lamont Campus on Friday, February 21st, 1:30-2:30pm in the Gary C. Comer Geochemistry Building, Seminar Room First Floor.

Our next scheduled session is Wednesday February 26th in Studebaker room 469 from 1:30-5:00. If you would like to attend, please let us know.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Friday February 7, 2020

Click here to read “Postdocs and the Price of Prestige at Columbia University”

In our latest bargaining session on Friday, we exchanged a larger number of proposals back and forth than has been typical in recent sessions. While we did not sign any new tentative agreements, we feel we made some important progress on several topics and hope this is a sign that the administration team is ready to start moving more quickly and more seriously toward reaching a fair overall agreement by our April 6 deadline. If Columbia is serious about reaching a fair agreement by that time, the administration team will need to accelerate the pace and quality of bargaining even more as we move forward. See below for more detail on or latest session with Columbia.

We were also encouraged this week to see more postdocs and associate researchers get involved and speak out, including the great Spectator piece above. In recent weeks, researchers have signed open letters, met with and explained our priorities to campus administrators, and have communicated our concerns to elected leaders in Congress. Given the rapidly approaching deadline and large number of outstanding issues, including our core demands for economic improvements, we encourage all postdocs and associate researchers to continue preparing for further actions.

More on our February 7 bargaining session.  

We exchanged proposals on Discipline and Discharge, Health and Safety, Intellectual Property, Job Posting, Union Security, Appointments and Reappointments, Holidays, Vacation, and Leaves. We also shared with Columbia another example of language that describes power-based harassment or “bullying” in an effort to continue our discussion about including meaningful protections against such abusive behavior in our contract.

Highlights from this session include the following.

On Discipline and Discharge, the University proposed language for the first time committing them to work with the Union to expedite the grievance process in cases where termination of an appointment might jeopardize the visa status of an international researcher. This is an important step by the administration team, but we expect to have further discussion on this topic and the article more generally.

We moved closer to agreement on Health and Safety, Intellectual Property, and Job Posting. On Health and Safety, we continue to work through a number of disagreements, including clarifying our rights and protections when we are required to perform work that could present an imminent threat to our safety..

We also moved closer to the University’s position overall on a package proposal involving Appointments and Reappointments, Holidays, Vacation and Leaves. In a package proposal such as this one, we propose more moderate provisions in certain areas on the condition that the University agree to certain priority issues like improved access to fully-paid paid family leave. Paid leave is a priority issue that we believe would enhance equity and inclusion in the Columbia research community – but so far the administration team has not proposed any improvement on this topic.

We have another session this Wednesday, February 12 from 9:30-1:00pm in Studebaker 469. If you would like to attend, please let us know.

Join us for a bargaining update town hall at the Lamont-Doherty Campus.

Our bargaining committee will be hosting a Town Hall at the Lamont Campus on Friday, February 21st, 1:30-2:30pm in the Gary C. Comer Geochemistry Building, Seminar Room First Floor. Please RSVP here if you would like to join us.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Friday January 17, 2020

Click here – great opinion piece on the need for Postdoc/Associate salary increases!

In actions across campus and the community over recent days, we sent a clear message that Columbia needs to dramatically improve compensation for Postdocs and Associate Researchers. The administration’s initial response makes clear we need to continue expanding our voice inside and outside bargaining if we want to win improved compensation and a fair union contract by April 6.   As one Columbia administrator put it at the bargaining table, “The University does not believe that anyone is underpaid.” See below for more details on recent bargaining and related activities.

Fighting for fair compensation inside and outside bargaining

Thanks to the hundreds of Postdocs and Associates who signed our open letter, shared their stories and helped deliver our message regarding how Columbia’s lagging compensation practices harm us and scientific research.

• The day before bargaining, delegations of researchers delivered our open letter demanding salary improvements to the offices of Provost Ira Katznelson and Dean Lee Goldman.
• As we were bargaining with the university team, a delegation of researchers from our union were also meeting with and explaining our goals with US Representative Grace Meng, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee that oversees the federal budget funding most of the research at Columbia.
• At the bargaining table, we explained the basis for our proposal for significant compensation improvements and shared stories from Postdocs and Associates about how Columbia’s lagging salaries undermine excellence and hinder equity and inclusion in our research community.

The fact that minimum postdoc salaries at Columbia are roughly 14% to 17% behind other New York City research institutions underscores why fair compensation is a core priority in our negotiations.

Other Updates from Bargaining on January 17 While we spent significant time on compensation, we also discussed our overall progress and believe we share a mutual interest with Columbia in reaching overall agreement on a contract in a timely manner.

We had a somewhat productive conversation around our package of four proposals on Appointments, Holidays, Vacation, and Leaves of Absence. We hope that by discussing all of these topics together, we can make progress on priority issues like improving the clarity and security of our appointments and establishing the right to fully-paid parental and other leaves of absence. We believe such improvements would make Columbia more competitive and inclusive.

While we believe Columbia genuinely wants to finish negotiations in a timely manner, the administration will need to make substantial changes to many of their proposals in order for us to reach a fair contract that achieves our bargaining goals. We have sessions scheduled for February 7 and February 12 and hope to continue making progress. Please click here to let us know if you can make it to an upcoming session.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Wednesday December 19, 2019

In our bargaining session on Thursday last week, we discussed Recognition, Intellectual Property, Non-Discrimination and Harassment, and Grievance and Arbitration articles.

Columbia made an official counter proposal on Non-Discrimination and Harassment that codified the verbal commitment they made last session to a work environment “free from abusive or intimidating behavior.” It also included a commitment to create a working group to discuss forms of abuse or harassment that are not covered under the University’s EOAA process, which would then make recommendations to the university administration for future policies.

Given that Columbia initially refused to acknowledge that power-based harassment is a major problem, we see their proposal as a step forward, which could improve the workplace environment for all workers on campus. However, we will continue to push beyond forming new committees to also establish enforceable protections against power-based harassment in our contract.

The university’s team also asked to have further discussion on Recognition (which says who is represented by the union). We continue to have concerns that the administration proposal could inappropriately exclude a small number of individuals with external fellowships who they believe are not “employees” of the University. We want to ensure that as many researchers as possible are represented and benefit from our contract. We intend to continue working to understand the variety of funding situations for fellows so we can reach an agreement that ensures maximum inclusion in our union.

We also briefly touched on Intellectual Property, asking some clarifying questions about the administration’s language, and gave Columbia a new counter proposal on Grievance and Arbitration that attempts to address some of Columbia’s concerns with the definition of a grievance.

We expect to have January bargaining dates sometime soon and will keep everyone informed as we move into the new year.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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Wednesday December 11, 2019

In our latest bargaining session this week, we discussed Health and Safety, Intellectual Property, Leaves of Absence, and Non-Discrimination. As Columbia continues its overall evaluation of our economic proposals on topics like salaries and health benefits, which we gave to them several months ago, we expect to continue to bargain over our proposals on workplace rights and protections. Highlights from this paticular session revolve mostly around the topic of non-discrimination and our overall goal of negotiating improvements that enhance equity and inclusion at Columbia.

Columbia’s team informed us that, rather than consider our bargaining proposal on non-discrimination, they wanted to hear us explain our concerns regarding Columbia’s current policies on and approach to addressing discrimination and harassment at the University. The administration team further told us they intend to establish a campus-wide committee to review and recommend changes to the current non-discrimination policies and procedures. They proposed that this committee could include representatives from our Union and would be established some time next year. While we appreciate Columbia acknowledging that its policies could be improved, and are confident that the petition earlier this year from a majority of researchers helped bring them to that conclusion, we also do not see the establishment of a committee as a substitute for codifying specific rights in our union contract. While discussing these concerns with the administration, we again drew their attention to one component of our proposal that is completely missing in their EOAA policy – protections against power-based harassment or “bullying.”

The administration team acknowledged more clearly than before that bullying is a problem, can inhibit mentorship and the advancement of science, and should be examined more thoroughly. However, they continued to resist putting any protections against bullying into our collective bargaining agreement. Given that the University has never included the concept of bullying in its non-discrimination policies, we know we will continue to have to fight both at the bargaining table and outside the bargaining room in order to make progress on this increasingly important topic for the research community.

We also gave Columbia a new Health and Safety proposal and discussed some aspects of our respective positions on Intellectual Property. Finally, we reminded them about the importance of our proposal for paid parental leave, another component of our efforts to enhance gender equity at Columbia and an increasingly common benefit at comparable research institutions. They said they consider the proposal to have an economic cost to the University budget and so do not plan to respond until they finish evaluating and responding to all of our economic proposals.

We will keep you updated as always and let us know if you have any questions.

Our next bargaining session is on December 19th, 1pm-4pm, Studebaker Building. Please RSVP if you would like to attend.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Monday November 25, 2019

We will be holding town halls to discuss the current status of our campaign to win improvements in our first union contract. This is a great opportunity to learn about the bargaining process, progress we have made so far, and what it will take to overcome Columbia’s continued resistance to some of our core proposals.

Please click here to RSVP to attend a Bargaining Update Town Hall

Bargaining Update Town Halls:

• Morningside: Monday, 12/16, 1-2pm in Fairchild, room 1000.
• CUMC: Tuesday, 12/17, 12-1pm in Physicians and Surgeons, room 16-405 (Todd Amphitheatre)
• Manhattanville: Wednesday, 12/18, 12:30-1:30pm, in Jerome L. Greene Science Center, room L7-119

21st Bargaining Session Update:

We had a brief bargaining session last week in which we discussed Health and Safety, Non-discrimination and Harassment, and health benefits.

We spent most of our time further discussing the topic of Non-Discrimination. We discussed some of the core components of our proposal to strengthen protections against bullying, discrimination and harassment. Our proposal would establish a timely grievance process, with interim protective measures during any investigation of the alleged discrimination or harassment, clear and easy access to union representation, and timely access to a neutral arbitrator if necessary. We continue to be disappointed in the administration’s formal responses to our proposal, especially since most of what we have proposed is increasingly common for postdoctoral researchers at other top-tier universities, like the University of California and University of Washington. We take Columbia at their word when they say they share our commitment to a research community free of bullying, discrimination and harassment. But based on their slow-moving response so far, we will clearly have more discussion on these issues as we continue forward in bargaining and it will continue to be important for PARs to make clear how important this is as part of our overall bargaining agenda.

The University also gave us a slightly revised proposal on Health and Safety, which we will respond to in our next session. Finally, we spent time in a subcommittee focused on our goal of improving the quality and affordability of PAR health insurance benefits.

Our next session is on December 11.

Please RSVP if you would like to attend an upcoming bargaining session:

• Wednesday, December 11th, 1:30-5pm, CUMC
• Thursday, December 19th, 1pm-4pm, Studebaker Building

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Thursday November 14, 2019

In our latest bargaining session late last week, our main objective was to continue emphasizing how our proposals on Leaves and Non-Discrimination aim to advance one of our main goals – to improve gender and other forms of equity and make Columbia a more inclusive research community. In addition, we had further discussions on our other proposals on Health and Safety and Appointments and Reappointments.

Sexual harassment and lack of family-friendly policies, such as paid parental leave, create unacceptable barriers to gender equity at Columbia. As such, last week, we focused on attempting to understand Columbia’s objections to our Non-Discrimination proposal so we can try to work through them. The core of our proposal aims to ensure access to a fair procedure In the cases where discrimination, harassment or bullying occur. This means ensuring protection during the investigative process and timely access to a neutral arbitrator if necessary. Interestingly, Columbia’s team asked, for the first time, what we thought the problems were with their existing EOAA procedures. We explained our deep concerns and how our proposal addresses them. Furthermore, we cited that our proposal reflects improvements satisfactorily applied for tens of thousands of other unionized academic workers at other universities. Yet, Columbia’s team continued to attempt to justify the status quo. Even more interestingly, in contrast to the University’s defense, the day after our bargaining session, the Columbia Eye published a major story describing widespread dissatisfaction with the University’s EOAA processes. Based on this conversation, we remain determined to streamline and clarify the priority points of our proposal.

We also spent time discussing our latest Health and Safety proposal. While we have reached some common understanding about the overall importance of Health and Safety for a productive research environment, Columbia made clear during this latest session that they are somewhat out of touch with the dilapidated conditions of many of the research buildings around campus. We hope they return a more robust counter proposal on this topic next time we meet.

Please RSVP if you would like to attend an upcoming bargaining session:

Monday, November 25th, 9:30am-1pm, Studebaker Building

Wednesday, December 11th, 1:30-5pm, CUMC

Thursday, December 19th, 1pm-4pm, Studebaker Building

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Monday October 28, 2019

In our latest bargaining session this week, we had further discussion on a handful of proposals, but reached no new tentative agreements. While we did have what we hope was useful dialogue on some of our proposals, it remains very clear that we still have a lot of work to do inside and outside the bargaining room in order to make progress on establishing new protections against bullying and harassment in our first contract. See below for more details about the topics covered in this session.

Non-Discrimination—we did not exchange any new written proposals on this article, but we did have substantive discussion of our proposed protections against “power-based harassment” or “bullying.” Columbia so far has shown little interest in including such a provision in our contract despite growing acknowledgement of the widespread nature of this problem at Columbia and in academia more generally, as well as hearing directly from researchers at Columbia about this problem. In the course of our discussion this week, the administration team objected to the particular language on bullying in our proposal. While they in no way committed to including the concept in the contract, we said we would consider alternative formulations of our language that could accomplish the same objectives in regards to this widespread problem. Given the importance of this issue, we intend to pursue every avenue to establish fair protections for researchers as part of our overall effort to make Columbia a more inclusive workplace.

Health and Safety – Columbia gave us a new proposal that incorporated a couple provisions we have been seeking, addressing notice requirements on asbestos projects and availability of first aid training. While we see this as progress, we still have a number of outstanding issues on this important topic.

International Researchers—The administration’s team continues to take a rigid position against many of the provisions in our proposal, focusing this week mostly on its refusal to consider language expanding researcher rights to be able to make more informed choices on visa options as the university wishes to retain the right to determine the visa of international researchers. They also believe that aspects of our proposal remains too “costly”. We expect to have many more conversations on this proposal.

Intellectual Property—While Columbia acknowledged that much of our proposal is similar to the existing University policies on these issues, they unfortunately have still made no counter proposal and continue to resist the idea of including protections against retaliation for a researcher who pursues a complaint related to intellectual property or research misconduct, even though this is a common protection in a growing number of union contracts in academia.

We also proposed a variety of bargaining dates in November and are waiting to hear back.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Thursday October 3, 2019

In our latest bargaining session with the Columbia team yesterday, we made a little bit more progress even as we continue to have many major issues to resolve. We are happy to report that we reached a tentative agreement on our Employment Files article. We had further substantive discussion and gave new proposals on Health and Safety and International Researcher Rights. We also discussed setting aside additional time to discuss our proposal to enhance paid leave options, a key component of our efforts to enhance gender equity in our contract negotiations. See below for a more extensive update.

Click here if you want to join us after the Velocity ride on Sunday.

Tentative agreement on Employment Files: Our tentative agreement on this topic ensures confidentiality of our employment files; prompt access to our files when we request it; the right to review and copy our files; and the right to submit a response to any information we disagree with, which will be maintained as part of the file.

Health and Safety. We gave Columbia a new counter proposal on this topic that aimed to be responsive to some of the concerns they had raised in response to our previous proposals. While we have achieved a conceptual agreement that PARs will have enforceable health and safety protections under our contract, Columbia continues to refuse to provide more detailed language that we believe would help clarify certain aspects of those rights. We hope they bring a more responsive counter proposal to our next session.

International Researcher Rights. In our counter proposal on international researcher rights, we made a number of modifications based on some of our discussions last week with representatives from the International Students and Scholars Office (ISSO). For example, we acknowledged that some of our proposed provisions could more clearly acknowledge how federal law places certain constraints on what the University can and cannot do to enhance the rights of PARs on issues such as visa options.

More discussion on paid leaves. We made clear that we hope to have further discussions in coming weeks about our proposal to improve paid leave options for PARs. We see improved paid family leave in particular as a critical benefit that could make Columbia more inclusive and be a leader in enhancing gender equity in the academic workforce. Numerous studies make clear that the lack of family-friendly benefits, including paid parental and family leave, disproportionately hurt women and constitute one of the barriers to women’s access to and participation in the academic workforce.

Our next full bargaining session is on October 28. We will keep you informed of any other major development.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Monday September 16, 2019

We presented all of our remaining economic proposals on Monday’s bargaining session. While we can make additional proposals if we need to, we have now given the administration proposals on all of the topics we have intended to cover. The proposals we made were: Titles and Classifications, Childcare, Housing, Parking and Transportation, Campus Facilities, Work-Incurred Injury or Illness, and Professional Development.

As a whole, our complete set of economic proposals is an ambitious effort to address one of the primary concerns raised by postdocs and Associate Research Scientists throughout our campaign: that the uniquely high cost of living in NYC creates a variety of challenges that undermine PARs’ ability to focus effectively on our research. We expect to have numerous discussions covering these topics in the coming months before reaching a fair agreement.

Our Titles and Classifications article sets out to clearly define the qualifications, roles and responsibilities of Postdoctoral Research Scientists/Scholars/Fellows and Associate Research Scientists/Scholars (PARs), which we hope will help avoid any misunderstandings in the future.

Our Childcare proposal seeks to improve upon the subsidy offered to PARs through Columbia and expand the age criteria for eligible children. We also hope to maintain the existing programs and resources offered through Columbia such as backup childcare and childcare centers.

Our Housing article aims to address numerous challenges PARs face when they move to NYC, such as limited availability of University-owned housing, , the opaque lottery process, and high rents.

The Parking and Transportation article expands the transportation options for PARs. By expanding transportation subsidies, vehicle and bicycle parking options, we hope to improve upon the costly transportation issues we face in NYC.

Our Campus Facilities article proposes that PARs have affordable access to on-campus facilities such as gym/recreational facilities, cultural, and athletic events.

Our Work-Incurred Injury or Illness proposal ensures that if a PAR is unable to work because of a work related injury or ailment that the University would cover any costs and maintain full compensation and benefits.

The Professional Development article would expand resources and opportunities for PAR professional development opportunities while at Columbia. We see a clear mutual interest between us and the University to maintain and expand upon the opportunities we have to continue our training and contribute to the world class research here at Columbia.

Our next bargaining session is September 26th from 1:00pm-5:00pm at CUMC in the lower level of Hammer, room LL110.

Please RSVP if you would like to attend a bargaining session.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Thursday September 5, 2019

We had a short bargaining session on Thursday where we presented initial proposals on our major economic topics. We made proposals on Compensation, Health Benefits, Retirement, Relocation Benefits, Tuition Benefits, and Tax Assistance. We expect to have many discussions over these issues in coming months before reaching a fair agreement. We also expect to provide a few more outstanding proposals on our next bargaining session on September 16th.

Please RSVP if you would like to attend a bargaining session.

Throughout our campaign and in hundreds of bargaining surveys, PARs have made clear the extreme financial challenges of working and living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. These challenges not only make our lives difficult, but also undermine our ability to give our fullest attention to the research that brought us to Columbia in the first place.

Our economic proposals as a whole aim to improve the overall standard of living for PARs and our families, strengthen our ability to focus on the research we care about, and make Columbia a more inclusive and competitive institution. For example, in recent years, Columbia has fallen behind other NYC institutions who have increased minimum Postdoc salaries significantly. When accounting for cost of living, we also believe Columbia salaries lag far behind colleagues at places like Harvard, Yale and Stanford. To remain fair and competitive, Columbia must do better.

In addition to giving initial economic proposals, we briefly revisited the topic of Non-Discrimination. Thus far, Columbia has barely changed its position on this priority issue for PARs. Since, among other things, the administration has refused to consider protections against “bullying” in the contract because they question whether it is a real problem, we provided them with some of the latest news coverage from the journal Nature about the growing acknowledgement of and efforts to address this problem in the international research community. Unfortunately, Columbia’s bureaucratically-oriented administrators are out of touch with what daily life can be like in a research laboratory. Rather than engage in more arguments at the table yesterday on this important topic, we chose to provide them with additional information to give them an opportunity to consider the importance of this proposal.

Our next bargaining session September 16th at the Studebaker Building from 9:00am-1:00pm.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Thursday August 15, 2019

Thanks to the everyone who attended bargaining yesterday. Unfortunately, we had another challenging bargaining session with Columbia. We had further discussion about our concerns that the University proposal on Recognition could improperly exclude paid-direct Postdoctoral Research Fellows from coverage and rights under our contract. Our conversations on this topic have been frustrating in part because the University has repeatedly changed its position on the number of people they believe might be excluded under their proposal. Yesterday’s discussion became quite intense across the table. Unfortunately, rather than continue attempting to work through our differences, Columbia’s team chose to end our bargaining session one hour earlier than scheduled.

Prior to the discussion on Recognition, we spent more time on Discipline and Discharge, Employment Files and Leaves, which we hope ends up helping us ultimately reach fair agreements on those topics. For example, on Discipline and Discharge, where both the University and the Union proposals include “just cause” protections against arbitrary termination, we continued a discussion from our last session on other areas of difference in our positions. We also attempted to work through a few remaining differences around the nature and timing of researchers’ right to access and be assured of the contents of their Employment Files.

We still have more work to do on these proposals before reaching agreements and we were disappointed that the University chose to walk out on the session when it got particularly challenging as opposed to remaining committed to working through differences to reach a fair agreement.

Our next bargaining session September 5th at the Medical Center from 1:00pm-5:00pm. Please RSVP if you would like to attend a bargaining session.

Thursday August 8, 2019

We had a frustrating bargaining session yesterday. While we hoped to come closer to and/or reach tentative agreements on several contract articles, we made very little progress.

We spent much of our session discussing our Intellectual Property proposal. Our proposal aims to clarify that postdocs and Associate Research Scientist (PARs) have the same rights as other full-time researchers, including faculty, as well as create clear protections against retaliation for PARs who pursue complaints involving intellectual property or scholarly misconduct. The University unfortunately has refused to make a proposal on this topic and told us today they intend to have no language in our contract at all in this area. Columbia’s team attempted to argue that because this topic is related to the academic mission of the University the rights of PARs do not belong in an agreement covering employment conditions. Given the enormous contributions we make to the University’s research mission, as employees, we obviously disagree.

We also had further discussion of our Recognition, Employment Files, and Discipline and Discharge proposals. On Recognition, the university continues to propose language that we are concerned would unnecessarily exclude people who bring their own funding to Columbia who believe would appropriately be represented by the Union. We believe we came a little closer to agreement on Employment Files, but will need to keep working on this topic. Finally, in an effort to come closer together on Discipline and Discharge, we had a lengthy discussion aimed at understanding how the university currently handles potential discipline and discharge of PARs. We expect to have many more conversations on this article in coming sessions.

Frustrating sessions like yesterday show that to achieve a fair contract we will need to demonstrate to the University that we are valuable members of the research community and we deserve fair and equitable working conditions in our contract.

Our next bargaining session August 15th at the Medical Center from 9:00am-1:00pm. Please RSVP if you would like to attend a bargaining session.

Thursday July 29, 2019

We had a short bargaining session yesterday, as well as a separate Health and Safety-focused bargaining subcommittee meeting at the end of last week. We are happy to report that we reached another tentative agreement yesterday on an article establishing fair workload protections. We spent most of our time yesterday discussing our proposals on Recognition, Employment Files, and Discipline and Discharge. While we did not reach agreement on those articles, or on our Health and Safety proposal, we believe we had constructive dialogue that will help us move forward. See below for a summary of these sessions.

Tentative agreement on Workload—We believe we reached agreement on a fair contract provision that establishes protections and an avenue of recourse against cases of abusive, arbitrary or unreasonable workload assigned by a supervisor, while also respecting the right of individual PARs to work as many hours on our projects as we choose.

Recognition—We are still working out some details on language. We want to make clear that the Union represents all the employees that were intended to be represented by our Union in the NLRB case and avoid any language that could open the door for some workers being inappropriately excluded. We hope to reach tentative agreement on this article soon.

Employment Files—While we have moved much closer to agreement on this article, the university still refuses to ensure the right for PARs to comment on information we believe is inaccurate in our employment files. This is a common provision in other postdoc union contracts.

Discipline and Discharge—While Columbia has agreed to the “just cause” standard, an important protection against arbitrary termination of position, we still have a number of differences in how to implement that standard most effectively under our contract.

Health and Safety—A subset of our respective bargaining committees met for a couple hours on Friday to discuss our Health and Safety proposals. We got to meet face-to-face with leadership of the University’s Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office, learn about existing procedures at the university, hear their reactions to our initial bargaining proposal, and discuss possible ways to move toward agreement. We felt it was a productive meeting overall that will inform our next proposal to ensure that all PARs work in a safe, healthy environment and receive the training and equipment necessary to do so.

Our next bargaining session August 8th in the Studebaker Building from 9:00am-1:00pm. Please RSVP if you would like to attend a bargaining session.

Best,