2019-2020 Contract Negotiations

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

Sign our open letter to NYC area members of Congress calling for their support!

As we approach April 6, 2020, we will increase efforts to send Columbia a strong message to reach a fair contract that improves our working conditions and our lives. Postdoc and Associate Researchers are now signing onto an open letter to elected officials in NYC asking them to urge Columbia to reach a fair agreement by April 6.

Our research helps bring roughly $1 billion in research funding to Columbia and NYC every year, mostly from federal agencies like NIH and NSF. Yet, Postdoc and Associate Research Scientist salary minimums at Columbia have fallen far behind other major NYC research institutions which now pay at least $58,500 per year for a starting postdoc. The university has also consistently fought against ensuring timely processes to address harassment and discrimination and parity of compensation and benefits for Fellows. Columbia’s inaction threatens to make it more difficult to attract and retain the best researchers, undermining the university’s role as a source of academic and scientific progress for the broader public. Click here to add your name to our open letter calling for working conditions that support federally-funded research.

The more of us who attend bargaining sessions, the more we can show Columbia that reaching a fair contract is a priority for all of us. Our next session is this Wednesday, February 26th, in Studebaker 469, from 1:30pm to 5:00pm. Please click here to let us know if you would like to attend part of the session this Wednesday.

Best

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

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

“We care deeply about our work, but we also know that we deserve more for our role in driving Columbia’s research mission. This devaluing of our work is one of the main reasons such a large majority of Columbia postdocs voted to unionize in late 2018 and demanded a major increase in compensation in our first contract. Comparable New York City research institutions have found ways to significantly increase base salaries.”

On Friday we will have our 25th bargaining session with Columbia since we began bargaining almost a year ago. While we have reached several tentative agreements on important contract articles, we have yet to hear back from the administration on any of our economic proposals.

We know firsthand how important adequate compensation is while we are conducting research in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Please read, like, and share this timely opinion piece.

Join us tomorrow for our 25th bargaining session from 9:30-1:00 in Studebaker 469.

You do not need to stay for the whole time or arrive at the beginning, but please let us know if you plan to attend.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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

Happy New Year! We hope that everyone has had a good start to 2020.

Please join us in showing Columbia that raising salaries is an important issue for all postdocs and ARS. We will be delivering our Open Letter calling on Columbia to raise salaries for all postdocs and associate researchers tomorrow, Thursday, January 16th from 12:00 to 12:30pm, on the Morningside and CUMC campuses

The more of us who attend this action, the greater the impact it will have on Columbia’s resistance to increase salaries at the bargaining table. Please sign our Open Letter calling on Columbia to raise salaries and provide postdocs and ARS with fair compensation.

Last year we reached several tentative agreements on important contract articles and presented the University administration with a complete set of economic proposals. We have yet to hear back from the administration on any of our economic articles.

This includes our compensation proposal, in which we presented the University with the evidence that Columbia is falling behind other NYC research institutions- Rockefeller, Mt. Sinai, and Memorial Sloan Kettering have all chosen to increase minimum salaries to at least $58,500 for postdoctoral researchers – with Cornell and NYU apparently planning to follow suit. It is clear that if we want fair compensation to match the high cost of living in NYC we will have to fight for it.

RSVP here to join us this Friday at 9:30am for our 23rd bargaining session in Studebaker room 367.

You do not need to stay for the whole time or arrive at the beginning, but please let us know if you plan to attend.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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

Next week, we will be holding town halls to discuss the current status of our campaign to win improvements in our first union contract. Come 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

22nd Bargaining Session Update:

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

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