Bargaining Committee Vacancy Election

Yesterday, we had an eventful bargaining session with some progress and many updates. We are happy to report that we reached tentative agreement on three more contract articles (Training, Travel, and Workspace and Materials). The administration team also made its first significant — though still totally inadequate — change to its proposal on Non-Discrimination, showing they are at least trying to acknowledge the central importance of this issue to researchers at Columbia. In the most insulting development, the University team gave us a virtually meaningless compensation proposal that simply codifies the existing minimum salaries that leave us far behind the high cost of living and our colleagues at a growing number of competitor institutions in New York City. See further details below.

Making some progress with three more tentative agreements

First, the good news–we reached tentative agreement on three more contract articles: Training and Orientation; Travel; and Workspace and Materials.

The Training article ensures that, for any required or approved training or orientation, the University will pay any associated fees and will consider participation to be part of our regular work time. The Travel article ensures that PARs will receive advances or “timely reimbursement” for required work-related travel expenses–we believe having this provision in our contract will improve our ability to address delays in reimbursements under current practice. Lastly, the Workspace and Materials article commits the university to provide access to “facilities, equipment, materials, and access to the Internet and other network resources” necessary to do our work–a proposal that Columbia initially said it would refuse to include in our contract.

While we have many larger outstanding disputes, we are encouraged by our ability to reach agreement on some of the more basic contract provisions that enhance the rights of PARs in ways that are compatible with advancing the mission of the University.

A significant, but still totally inadequate, Columbia proposal on Non-Discrimination.

Nearly five months after our initial proposal, Columbia finally made a proposal that acknowledges the right of PARs to take a grievance on sexual harassment or discrimination to a neutral arbitrator. However, while we appreciate this important step in establishing rights to fair recourse, Columbia’s proposal remains mostly inadequate.

For example, their proposal would require a PAR to process a complaint through existing University non-discrimination procedures before initiating the union grievance process. This could lead to significant and totally unacceptable delays before a PAR could get a fair hearing from a neutral arbitrator because Columbia’s existing investigation procedures have no real deadlines. Columbia also continues to reject many of the other significant components of our proposal, such as protection against bullying, guaranteed interim measures to protect survivors from further harassment or discrimination during investigation of a grievance, and agreement to work jointly with the Union to improve training aimed at preventing bullying, harassment and discrimination. After a majority of PARs signed an open letter to Columbia demanding fair recourse, we are encouraged that Columbia has made a small improvement in its position, but we have a long way to go in order to reach agreement on this important topic.

A Compensation Proposal that would codify Columbia’s competitive disadvantage

Finally, Columbia’s team gave us an initial proposal on Compensation that simply reiterates the current University minimum salary rates for Postdoctoral Research Scientists, Postdoctoral Research Fellows, and Associate Research Scientists. Frankly, we are not even sure why the University gave us this proposal, as it offers no improvement to the status quo. As a majority of PARs have made clear throughout our campaign and in our bargaining surveys, Columbia needs to do significantly better when it comes to compensating us fairly for the world-class research we do at this University. Columbia’s minimum salaries lag significantly behind a growing number of New York City institutions that now pay Postdocs a minimum salary over $58,000. We know Columbia can do much better, and needs to do much better in order for us to work together to maintain our status as a magnet for attracting the best researchers from across the world.

We have several sessions coming up. If you would like to attend a session please RSVP to let us know in advance, as the locations are subject to change. Many PARs have attended bargaining sessions and found them illuminating to understand the process and the challenges we have ahead in order to win a fair first contract at Columbia.

Upcoming Sessions:

July 25th, 9am-1pm

July 29th, 2pm-5 pm

August 8th, 9am-1pm

August 15th, 9am-1pm

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

In our latest bargaining session this week, another postdoc gave compelling testimonial about bullying, discrimination and harassment, we had constructive discussion on many of our outstanding proposals, and reached a tentative agreement on another contract article (Union-Management Committee).

RSVP for an upcoming union Town Hall the week of July 2nd-5th to hear an update about bargaining, ask questions and learn how to get more involved.  

We started with a testimonial from one of our postdoc colleagues about the impact and challenges of working in a hostile and disruptive lab environment at Columbia. The postdoc  discussed how his P.I. had engaged in extensive bullying, manipulation, and intimidation of lab members. He described how the P.I. responded when one member of the lab filed a Title IX complaint against another lab member. The P.I. reacted with hostility toward the complainant and decided a few months later not to renew the complainant’s contract. The P.I.’s actions ultimately led several researchers to leave the group.

The postdoc reached out to various University offices about the abusive behaviors he had observed. Other than assurance that the situation would be investigated, the member was given no remedy. Ultimately, he found a position in another laboratory on his own. He closed his testimony by arguing for the importance of a neutral grievance procedure and clear definition of power-based harassment (i.e. bullying) in order to make it easier for researchers to raise and address these situations in a fair process with representation and advocacy from the Union.

After our colleague’s testimony, we signed a tentative agreement on an article establishing a Union-Management Committee that would ensure the Union and Columbia meet at least quarterly to discuss any issues that arise during the life of our contract. We then had further discussion and believe we came a little closer to reaching an agreement on our proposals regarding Training and Orientation, Travel, Work space and Materials, and Employment Files.

We also had more substantive discussion of our Vacation, Holidays and Leaves proposals. We continue to have the greatest differences around our proposal to expand PARs’ right to paid parental, family medical and other leaves of absence. Columbia made it very clear that they believe the status quo is more than sufficient and had no interest in changing the current leaves benefits. While we believe our proposals would make the university more inclusive and enable recruitment and retention of the best researchers regardless of background or family status, Columbia’s team so far has rigidly rejected any change to the status quo in this area.  We expect to continue to discuss this important issue in future sessions.

We finished the bargaining session with a brief discussion of our Non-discrimination and Harassment proposal and our proposal to clarify “just cause” protections against arbitrary termination. It is clear that the numerous testimonials in bargaining and the open letter signed by a majority of PARs calling for real recourse has pressured Columbia at least start listening to our concerns on discrimination and harassment.

It is clear that it will take continued engagement and hard work from PARs all across campus to reach a fair agreement with Columbia.

Please RSVP for our Bargaining Update Town Halls to ask questions, hear an update about the progress we have made in bargaining and next steps on how to win a strong contract in bargaining with Columbia.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Since winning our union election last October by an overwhelming 68%, we have completed surveys from a majority of postdocs and associate researchers, democratically ratified our bargaining goals, elected a bargaining committee, and concluded our first eight bargaining sessions!

We are holding Town Hall meetings to answer questions about our progress in bargaining and discuss our strategy for winning a strong contract.

Click here to RSVP for a Bargaining Update Town Hall.

• Manhattanville – Jerome L. Greene Science Center, Room L3-079, July 2nd, 12:30-1:30pm

• Morningside – Fairchild Building, Room 1000, July 3rd, 12:30-1:30pm

• CUMC – Physicians and Surgeons Building, Room 16-405 (Todd Amphitheatre), July 5th, 12:00-1:00pm

The more of us who participate in shaping our contract campaign, the better the contract we will be able to win in negotiations. Please click here to let us know if you can make it to a Town Hall so we know how much food and materials to prepare.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Thanks to all our colleagues who joined us at our lively bargaining session with Columbia on Monday.  We spent most of this week’s session addressing Columbia’s concerns about our proposal for stronger protections against bullying, discrimination, and harassment, as well as explaining how short, insecure appointments and inefficient reappointment procedures can disrupt our ability to focus on our research.  We exchanged a number of other proposals as well. See below for more details.

We began our session with one of our international researcher colleagues vividly describing the (unfortunately not uncommon) experience of working without pay due to Columbia’s bureaucratic delays in processing appointments. In this individual’s case, he arrived, along with his pregnant wife, to start work and had to pay rent and thousands of dollars in prenatal health care costs out-of-pocket for the first few months while receiving no income from Columbia. He further described the cost, stress, and disruption to his research caused by Columbia’s insistence on short-term appointments, requiring him to return to his home country annually to renew his visa and ensure that his wife was able to work.  We hope that his story helped show Columbia that our proposals for longer appointments and flexibility on visa sponsorship would help us focus on research and make Columbia a more family-friendly and inclusive community of scholars.

After our colleague’s testimony, we had a lengthy discussion around our Non-Discrimination and Harassment proposal. Unfortunately, rather than engage in substantive discussion of the main principles behind our proposal, Columbia argued that we had either not read or not understood Columbia’s current policies on harassment, that PARs do not experience difficulties under the current system, that the option of a neutral third-party is unnecessary, and that Columbia is already “a national leader” in addressing sexual harassment – in spite of numerous high-profile cases of misconduct and the fact that strengthening current policies was one of the many reasons a majority of PARs voted for a union.

After hearing their objections, we made clear that stronger protections against discrimination and harassment was a major reason we formed a union and that we intend to continue this discussion until we reach an agreement on fair protections. We felt even more strongly about our proposal having just seen how contractual protections, support, and advocacy from her union helped UCLA postdoc Sandra Koch win her job back last week by pursuing a union grievance against pregnancy discrimination.

Next, we passed Columbia five updated counter-proposals on: Appointments and Reappointments, Training, Travel, Union-Management Committee, and Workspace and Materials. While their team continued to argue against longer appointment lengths, they acknowledged that there are issues related to reappointment and visa renewal that should be addressed. We also made a lot of progress on our Union-Management Committee proposal, which would establish a joint committee to help enforce the contract, and we expect to reach a tentative agreement on this at our next session. This is good news, and demonstrates that we are continuing to move forwards while identifying the areas on which we are still farther apart.

The University also passed us their first proposal on the subject of Discipline and Discharge, which included “just cause” protection against termination.  While we have a number of other issues to work out in that article of the contract, it is an important step forward that Columbia agreed to include “just cause” as it protects researchers against arbitrary, unfair termination by a supervisor.

Overall, in the words of one postdoc who attended the bargaining session, it seemed as if Columbia’s team was not “feeling enough pressure” on the issues we discussed. While logical arguments and data are important aspects of the process, it was clear at this session that winning real recourse and protection against bullying, discrimination, and harassment, and more stable policies for international workers, will take the continued participation and action of postdocs and Associate Research Scientists across the university. Our next bargaining session will take place on June 20th.

Click here to find out what you can do to help win a strong contract at Columba.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

In our seventh bargaining session, we presented the administration with our open letter signed by a majority of Postdocs and Associate Research Scientists, calling on Columbia to negotiate stronger protections and recourse against harassment and discrimination. Representatives from our union and the graduate worker union delivered the open letter to President Bollinger’s office earlier that afternoon. Check out our facebook post and like the page to receive similar updates.

We started out our bargaining session yesterday with a powerful testimony from one of our fellow Associate Research Scientists who talked about being bullied by her former PI over a seven year period and the lack of effective university policies to address her type of situation, especially for international researchers whose visas depend on their PI’s support.

She described a culture of bullying and abuse of power that took the form of expecting researchers to work 12-13 hour days and over the weekends, clear violations of intellectual property policies, belittling comments and deliberate undermining of the lab members, and extreme pressure to deliver results. Even after leaving the lab, she was excluded from authorship over her own work and faced retaliation when she attempted to use existing university procedures to seek recourse. The administration’s bargaining team acknowledged that strengthening protections against this kind of behavior was in the interest of everyone at the university.

During the session, we made four new proposals and continued to discuss several others. We made a lot of progress on some of our key non-economic issues, and reached our first tentative agreement with the university, on our Severability article. This is very exciting because it demonstrates that we are making progress towards a fair agreement with the University. The article ensures that if any part of the contract is invalidated by law, that the rest of the contract will remain in effect. Our four new proposals were: Non-Discrimination and Harassment, International Worker Rights and Protections, Intellectual Property and Scholarly Misconduct, and Health and Safety.

Our Non-Discrimination and Harassment proposal would state the university’s commitment to protect against all forms of discrimination and harassment, establish preventative measures, and provide recourse options in cases where these issues do take place.

Our International Workers Rights and Protections proposal would provide more support and transparency for international PARs in acquiring visas and protections against visa-renewal related costs.

Our Intellectual Property proposal would give PARs more rights and control over what happens with research that we produce.

Our Health and Safety proposal would ensure that PARs can address health concerns and maintain safe working environments.

The university also gave us a packet of their positions on various articles, which nevertheless did not address many of our most recent proposals and ignored substantial issues we raised in previous sessions. In our next bargaining sessions, we will continue to discuss these and other proposals as we move forward in negotiations.

Our next bargaining session will take place on June 10th. One member of our bargaining committee, Sonny Harman, will be leaving Columbia soon and will be replaced by our current Alternate, Ignacio Hernandez Morato. If you have any questions or would like to get more involved with the union please email columbiapostdocunion@gmail.com

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

We are planning to present our harassment and discrimination proposal in our next session. If you have not yet signed our Open Letter to the University, encouraging them to agree to stronger protections around bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination please do so here.

We had our sixth bargaining session with the University’s bargaining team yesterday. We discussed several new proposals and had further discussion on a number of our previous proposals. While we have not yet reached agreement on any of our proposed contract articles, we did have productive dialogue on a number of topics and felt we made a little bit more progress toward finding common ground than in some of our previous sessions. See below for details.

We began by presenting new counter proposals on Vacation, Employment Files, and Job Postings. Our Employment Files proposal would provide recourse for a Postdocs or Associate Research Scientists (PAR) to access and review their employment file. Our Job Postings proposal would ensure that a diverse and qualified pool of candidates could apply for a positions, making the University more inclusive and competitive. Our Vacation proposal would entitle PARs to a well-defined and easily enforceable allotment of vacation time that cannot be dictated solely by the P.I. We still have differences to work out on each proposal, but yesterday’s discussions made us more hopeful of reaching fair agreements on Employment Files and Job Postings. Vacation may be more challenging because of how it connects to our ongoing discussion of paid leave for parents and other related reasons.

Columbia responded with counter proposals on Union Security and Holidays and proposed a new No-Strike No-Lockout clause. We were particularly encouraged by their proposal on Holidays, which moved beyond their previous way of making proposals that just referenced the Handbook, which would allow them to retain the ability to change the policy whenever they want. In their newest counter proposal, the University has specified actual dates, as well as defining personal days. They also included a provision we proposed, which would give PARs the right to take off an alternative day if required to work on a holiday. This is an important step forward in these discussions.

Their Union Security proposal would allow an open shop where everyone would receive the benefits of the contract without contributing financially to the cost of representation. This proposal would substantially weaken the power of our local union to bargain strong subsequent contracts and enforce our contract once it goes into effect.

The No-Strike No-Lockout clause is a standard clause in union contracts that would ensure that during the life of a contract, the University could not force PARs to stop working over a disagreement about the contract and unionized employees could not engage in strikes or work stoppages. It is typically accompanied by a robust Grievance and Arbitration provision, which would allow us to resolve any disputes through a neutral arbitrator if necessary instead of striking. We still have a long way to go to reach agreement on our grievance procedure proposal, and do not see how we can agree to a no-strike provision without such a strong enforcement mechanism also in our a contract.

Our next session is May 20th. If you have any questions or would like to get more involved with the union please email columbiapostdocunion@gmail.com

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

Yesterday we completed our fifth bargaining session with the University.

Our bargaining committee continued to discuss several proposals we had previously made to the University which address many of the reasons a majority of us voted to have a union. We are engaged in collective bargaining to improve our lives as researchers and make Columbia more equitable, inclusive and competitive. However, the administration continues to minimize the importance of our proposals and insist that what they provide is already good enough.

We discussed Union Access and Rights (the ability for the union to effectively engage with members on campus), Workspace and Materials (ensuring that researchers have adequate space and materials to complete their work), Workload and Work Quality (protections from unreasonable workloads), Employment Files (the right to view and comment on our employment files), Job Posting (having equitable and fair transparency around postings), Travel (timely reimbursement for travel-related costs), and Appointment Notifications (minimum appointment lengths and a clear process for reappointment).

The University responded with a follow up proposals to Union Recognition (a definition of what job classifications are included in the union) and Workspace and Materials. Most of our discussion revolved around the idea that current University policies often fall short of ensuring clear procedures for Postdocs and Associate Research Scientists to have redress when it comes to basic workplace rights. Our next session is Scheduled for May 2nd, where we hope to continue to discuss the 22 articles that we have proposed so far.

If you would like to get more involved in our effort to bargain a strong contract please click here and we will reach out to you.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

We are excited to have completed our fourth bargaining session with Columbia.

Please take a minute to add your voice to our Open Letter on Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination.

While we had productive discussion on several proposals such as; Union Management Committee, Training and Orientation, Work Load and Workspace and Materials, it is clear that that we have a lot more work to do to on several other provisions in the contract. In several of Columbia’s counter proposals, the University continues to propose maintaining the status quo on current policies while simultaneously reserving the right to change those  policies without bargaining with our union.

We voted overwhelmingly to have an equal seat at the table and collectively bargain to improve our working conditions. We want to have clear, enforceable language in our contract and Columbia continues to insist on the status quo in which they would have the right to unilaterally change and determine our working conditions. In the University’s counter proposals on Leaves, Holidays, Vacation and Job Postings they proposed having language that would not even codify the status quo but would simply allow the university to determine those policies outside of our contract.

The University gave us counter proposals on Union Management Committee, Training and Orientation, Work Load,  Workspace and Materials, Leaves, Job Postings, Union Rights and Access, Appointment Notification and Employment Files.

We gave counters on Employment Files, Union Management Committee, Training and Orientation, Vacation and Holidays.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee