2019-2020 Contract Negotiations

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

RSVP here to join us this Thursday at 12:30 for our 20th bargaining session.

We are excited to be bargaining again in Studebaker room 207. We encourage everyone to come to the session for a first-hand view of the bargaining process and the administration’s positions on the topics we have proposed would be covered in our first contract.

We are now in our 9th month of bargaining for our first contract. We have proposed what we believe to be a complete set of articles covering the improvements postdocs and Associate Research Scientists have expressed are important through bargaining surveys filled out by a majority of researchers.

We are continuing to have constructive dialogue about several key areas of concern with the University, most notably Non-Discrimination, bullying, Health and Safety, and International Researchers Rights. We will meet soon in a break out committee to discuss our healthcare proposal. The University’s team has yet to respond to our economic proposals and has not made a counter to our compensation proposal.

We hope to make progress on these important issues in the sessions scheduled for the rest of the year. Please RSVP if you would like to attend a bargaining session.

Upcoming dates:

Thursday, November 14th, 12:30-4pm, Studebaker Building

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

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

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

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 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

In regards to the CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee Vacancy Election scheduled to be on Thursday, October 17th, 2019, one of the candidates has withdrawn their candidacy from the election. As a result, there will no longer be an election.

The two remaining candidates have been elected by acclamation:

Pierre-Jacques Brun

Jozsef Meszaros

Congratulations to the newest members of the bargaining committee. Our next bargaining session is on October 28th from 1:00pm to 5:00pm in Studebaker room 367. Please RSVP if you would like to join us.

See below for the official notice of the Bargaining Committee Vacancy Election on Thursday, October 17th, 2019. Candidate statements, the guide to electioneering and more information can be found on the CPW-UAW website.

If you would like to volunteer as an election observer please click here.

NOTICE OF VACANCY ELECTION – UNION BARGAINING COMMITTEE (2 positions)

An election for two [2] CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee positions will take place on Thursday, October 17th, 2019 at the following times and locations.

Morningside: 10am-12pm, 1pm-6pm, in Joe’s Cafe in the Northwest Corner Building

CUMC: 10am-12pm, 1pm-6pm, in Hammer Health Sciences Building, Room LL1-104

Lamont: 10am-2pm, in the Cafeteria

Manhattanville: 10am-12pm, 1pm-4pm, Forum cafe (The Forum)

A run-off election, if necessary, will be held on Thursday, October 24th, 2019 from 10am to 6pm. The locations will be announced if necessary.

The following candidates have accepted nomination for the two [2] CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee positions:

Pierre-Jacques Brun

Laureline Josset

Jozsef Meszaros

The election will be conducted with the two [2] candidates who receive the highest number of votes being elected. All eligible Union supporters [any Columbia Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Associate Research Scientist, or Associate Research Scholar who is currently employed by the university] who have filled out a CPW-UAW authorization card or a bargaining survey are eligible to vote. Members of the bargaining unit who have not done so may fill out an authorization card at the polls prior to voting.

Ballots will be counted after the polls close at Brownie’s Cafe (basement of Avery Hall).

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

CPW-UAW Notice of Nomination

NOTICE OF NOMINATION AND VACANCY ELECTION FOR THE UNION BARGAINING COMMITTEE (two [2] positions)

October 2, 2019

Nominations are hereby declared open for the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers-UAW (CPW-UAW) Bargaining Committee (two [2] positions): All eligible Union supporters [any Columbia Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Associate Research Scientist, or Associate Research Scholar who is currently employed by the university] who have filled out a CPW-UAW authorization card or a bargaining survey are automatically nominated for the CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee.

There are two [2] positions open on the bargaining committee.

Any eligible Union supporter who wishes to accept the nomination for one of the two (2) Bargaining Committee positions listed above must indicate their intention in writing, by electronic scan (pdf), photograph attachment, or by hand delivery of a signed acceptance of nomination for the specified position above no later than 5:00pm on Wednesday, October 9th, 2019: CPW-UAW Elections, 256 W 38th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or by e-mail to columbiapostdocunion@gmail.com.

Click here to learn more about the responsibilities of bargaining committee members.

Candidate statements:

Each candidate may write and submit a candidate statement of no more than 250 words. These statements will be posted on the CPW-UAW website if there are contested elections. Address, phone number and email address must be included, but will not be counted toward the 250 words.

It is the responsibility of the candidate to submit the candidate statement. All candidate statements must be received by the time nominations close at 5:00pm on Wednesday, October 9th, 2019.

Election Dates, Times and Locations:

In the event that the number of eligible candidates who accept nomination does not exceed two (2), such candidate(s) will be deemed elected by acclamation and no election will be held.

If more than two (2) eligible candidates accept nomination, an election will be conducted with the two (2) candidates who receive the highest number of votes being elected. All eligible Union supporters [any Columbia Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Associate Research Scientist, or Associate Research Scholar who is currently employed by the university] who have filled out a CPW-UAW authorization card or a bargaining survey are eligible to vote. Members of the bargaining unit who have not done so may fill out an authorization card at the polls prior to voting.

Elections will take place on Thursday, October 17th, 2019 at the following times and locations.

Morningside: 10am-12pm, 1pm-6pm, in Joe’s Cafe in the Northwest Corner Building

CUMC: 10am-12pm, 1pm-6pm, in Hammer Health Sciences Building, Room LL1-104

Lamont: 10am-2pm, in the Cafeteria

Manhattanville: 10am-12pm, 1pm-4pm, Forum cafe (The Forum)

A run-off election, if necessary, will be held on Thursday, October 24th, 2019 from 10am to 6pm. The locations will be announced if necessary.

Voters shall be entitled to vote for a total of two (2) candidates.

Join us at the Velocity Ride to End Cancer!

On Sunday, October 6th, some of us will be handing out information after the Velocity Ride to End Cancer, an important fund-raising event for cancer research at Columbia. We will be sharing information about the important role of postdocs and ARSs and how improvements to our working conditions can enhance the quality of research. Please click here if you would like to join us.

Bargaining Update 9/26/2019

In our most recent bargaining session, we exchanged proposals on a handful of topics and had a lengthy discussion with representatives from the University’s International Students and Scholars Office (ISSO). We reached no new tentative agreements. Among highlights, Columbia’s team finally gave us an initial counter proposal on our International Researcher Rights article; and we presented our initial counter proposal to the University’s Management and Academic Rights article. See below for more details about the session.

International Researcher Rights. We spent most of the session hearing from and asking questions of two representatives from the ISSO. As PARs appreciate the ISSO and all it does, we were glad to have the opportunity to ask questions about how they currently handle a variety of issues related to our proposal, such as how and why the University determines whether to apply for a H versus J (or other) visa when offering an appointment to a postdoc or ARS.

The University’s first proposal on this topic was definitely an important step in the right direction acknowledging some of the unique concerns of international PARs, but it has major flaws. While the University envisions the possibility of PARs continuing to work or be re-employed when they are prevented from re-entry to the US or otherwise have problems with work authorization status, important aspects of our proposal, their language has far too many contingencies to make these meaningful provisions at this point. Their proposal also makes no mention of several other critical topics from our proposal.

Management Rights. As this article is one of Columbia’s central priorities, we presented an initial counter proposal that seeks to balance our desire to negotiate enforceable workplace rights and improvements with the administration’s desire to maintain their academic and management rights to run the university. We expect such an article to be in our final contract, but our proposal is contingent on reaching a complete agreement as we are only willing to acknowledge their management rights once we know what OUR rights will be under our contract.

Other proposals exchanged. We gave new counter proposals on Employment Files, Grievance and Arbitration, and Union Security. The University gave us a new counter proposal on Health and Safety. On this last topic, while we have reached a common understanding that PARs will have broadly enforceable rights to a safe and healthy workplace, the University continues to refuse to acknowledge some of the specific examples that we would like to see enumerated in the contract language. After two subcommittee meetings on this topic, we were disappointed not to see more substantive change in their proposal. We will continue to work on this one.

Our next session is October 3rd from 2:00-5:00pm at CUMC in Hammer LL210.

Please let us know if you would like to attend a bargaining session.

Best,

CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee

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

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