The university’s ‘request for review’ is yet another effort to avoid bargaining with our union after our overwhelming 68% vote for unionization. In our response, we ask the NLRB to dismiss the administration’s claims that postdocs are akin to students and not employees, and that postdocs and ARSs do not share common interests that would make bargaining a contract together appropriate.They also argue that the NLRB decision that granted graduate employees at Columbia (and all private sector universities across the country) the right to form a union should be overturned.
We are disappointed at the administration’s attempts not only to avoid bargaining with our union, but to block all postdoctoral researchers and graduate employees at private universities from having the right to form unions. We hope the NLRB dismisses their attempted delay and that the administration agrees to comes to the table and negotiate a fair contract.
We are continuing to move forward with our bargaining committee election and making sure that everyone has an opportunity to take the union bargaining survey and get more involved with the union.
If you would like to run for the bargaining committee*, you must accept your nomination no later than 5:00 pm on Thursday November 8th, 2018.
One way you can accept your nomination, is to send an email stating your intention to run for the bargaining committee with a 250 word biography to columbiapostdocunion@gmail.com (Click here for some examples from the Graduate Employee Union)
Having a majority of postdoctoral researchers fill out the bargaining surveys will allow our soon to be elected bargaining committee, to be in the best position to represent everyone across Columbia’s campuses.
* Any postdoctoral researcher or ARS is eligible to run for the bargaining committee as long as they have filled out a CPW-UAW authorization card or union bargaining survey
If you have any questions please respond to this email address and we will reply as soon as possible.
Columbia has launched another effort to avoid bargaining with our union. We learned Friday night that Columbia filed a “request for review” asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, to reverse the recent certification of our union by the regional NLRB in New York City. Columbia repeats the same arguments they used while trying to prevent our historic election from taking place, that postdocs are merely “trainees” and should therefore be denied the right to collective bargaining and that postdocs and associate research scientists do not share common interests and should be denied the right to bargain together as part of the same union. You can read Columbia’s entire request for review on our website.
We find Columbia’s attempt to deny our union rights deeply disappointing and cynical. Their argument ignores our work and the value we bring to Columbia, as well as the successful track record of postdoc collective bargaining at more than a half dozen major research universities.
However, while disappointing, Columbia’s effort to block our union does not come as a total surprise and will not discourage or deter our campaign. Let us remember, since Columbia launched its effort to oppose graduate student worker unionization, support for the union has only grown, many improvements have been won, and nine other private universities – including Harvard, Brown and Cornell – now bargain with or have agreed to bargain with graduate workers who vote to unionize.
NOTICE OF NOMINATION AND ELECTION FOR THE UNION BARGAINING COMMITTEE (seven [7] positions)
October 26, 2018 Nominations are hereby declared open for the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers-UAW (CPW-UAW) Bargaining Committee (seven [7] 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. The bargaining committee will be composed of seven (7) positions.
Any eligible Union supporter who wishes to accept the nomination for one of the seven (7) 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 5pm on Thursday, November 8th, 2018: 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 5pm on Thursday, November 8th, 2018.
Election Dates, Times and Locations: In the event that the number of eligible candidates who accept nomination does not exceed seven (7), such candidate(s) will be deemed elected by acclamation and no election will be held. If more than seven (7) eligible candidates accept nomination, an election will be conducted with the seven (7) 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 a bargaining survey at the polls prior to voting. Elections will take place on Thursday, November 15th, 2018, at the following times and locations.
Morningside: 10am-6pm, in Blue Java Cafe (Mudd Hall)
CUMC: 10am-6pm, in Hammer Health Sciences Building Room LL1-104
Lamont: 10am-2pm, in Geosciences entrance
Manhattanville:10am-4pm, Forum cafe, (The Forum)
A run-off election, if necessary, will be held on Wednesday, November 21st, from 10am to 6pm. The locations will be announced if necessary.
Voters shall be entitled to vote for a total of seven (7) candidates.
Thank you all for attending a town hall on our upcoming bargaining committee elections and for your helpful feedback on the size and composition of the committee and the election timeline.
In the discussions there was agreement on the timeline and that a committee composed of seven members was appropriate. However, overall, a clear preference for candidates running at-large rather than based on jurisdiction emerged. Based on this, we plan to move ahead with seven at-large candidates for our first bargaining committee.
We feel confident we can elect a strong, representative, and successful bargaining committee like those at other universities with similarly diverse workforces. We also look forward to implementing some of the additional ideas we discussed that will help ensure an effective and representative bargaining committee, regardless of who gets elected. These ideas include town halls, issue-focused meetings, working groups for specific topics, additional surveys, as well as maintaining a strong organizing committee. Implementing these items together will help keep us all informed of what is happening at various points in our negotiations.
The next step is to send out a notification of nomination, after which anyone who chooses to run will have the opportunity to accept the nomination and begin their campaign to be elected. If you are interested in running for the bargaining committee and would like to learn more about the responsibilities involved, or talk to someone with first-hand experience of the bargaining process, please feel free to reach out.
Thank you,
Steven Cook (Department of Biological Sciences)
Tulsi Patel (Pathology and Cell Biology)
Andrew Zaharia (Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute)
We are excited that our mandate for collective bargaining has gained national press attention as well as support from elected leaders right here in New York City.
The letter urges the University to respect our 68% mandate for collective bargaining and to bargain with the graduate employees who voted 72% yes for their union.
We hope that after weeks of conversation about collective bargaining amongst our campus community that our decision to vote yes for CPW-UAW as our union will be respected by the University.
The NLRB just finished counting ballots and we voted by an overwhelming 68% (729-yes to 339-no), in favor of Columbia Postdoctoral Workers-UAW as our union.
We will have more information soon regarding next steps in our campaign. For now, we want to thank everyone who has participated in this historic election and for the last two years leading up to it. Together, we have truly generated an unprecedented discussion of the importance and value of our work as postdocs and associate research scientists.
We are very excited that our election on unionization is less than one week away on October 2nd and 3rd. We have a historic opportunity to vote ‘yes’ and secure our ability to bargain a fair contract with the university administration and secure protections and improvements into a binding contract.
Huge news! The regional National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) just set dates for our election on unionization to take place on October 2nd and 3rd. We are happy to report that the regional NLRB rejected Columbia’s attempt to deny more than 1,000 of us the ability to vote at all, and further agreed with our proposal for Postdoctoral Research Scientists/Scholars/Fellows and Associate Research Scientists/Scholars to vote on and be represented together in the same union. Click here to share with us why you plan to vote union yes!
If a majority votes “yes” for CPW-UAW in the election, Columbia would have a legal obligation to engage in collective bargaining with us as a union. We would elect a committee of our peers to sit down as equals with Columbia to negotiate for improvements that matter to us as committed scientists and scholars. We would join together with thousands of postdocs at the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, University of Washington, UMass, and UConn, and 75,000 total UAW academic workers across the United States, who already bargain. Check here to read examples of improvements our UAW colleagues have won at other universities.
You can read the full regional NLRB decision here and see below for voting times and locations. We will be sharing more detailed information about the election soon, as well as upcoming events where postdocs can learn more in order to make an informed decision in this historic vote.
October 2nd (Tuesday ONLY):
Manhattanville, Jerome L. Greene Science Center 1pm-3pm
Lamont Doherty, Sutton House 11am-1pm
Nevis Laboratory, Irvington, NY, Library 136 Broadway 10am-11am
We are happy to report that we concluded our hearings at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) yesterday. For our case, we had two postdoctoral researcher witnesses give testimony about their experiences at Columbia showing the common conditions and nature of our work whether we are classified as Postdoctoral Research Scientists/Scholars, Postdoctoral Research Fellows or Associate Research Scientists/Scholars.
Columbia wanted additional hearing time to put on evidence and testimony to support their argument that Postdoctoral Research Scientists (PDRS) and Postdoctoral Research Fellows (PDRF) are not employees and should be denied the right to a union. The regional NLRB rejected their request, based on previous NLRB decisions, but did allow them to submit an “offer of proof,” essentially a summary of what their case would have been if the NLRB allowed hearings on their claim that PDRS and PDRF are not employees.
You can read Columbia’s complete ‘offer of proof’ here. In short, the University argued that “the Union’s petition, as it relates to postdoctoral trainees, should be dismissed.” The University claimed that “Postdoctoral trainees are merely ‘trainees,’” that we “seek positions at Columbia not as a job or as a career, but instead for educational and training purposes“ and that “The tasks performed by postdoctoral trainees are fundamentally educational and are part of their training.”
Now that hearings have concluded, the union and the employer get to submit “briefs”, final written arguments, to the NLRB by September 4. Once briefs are submitted, the NLRB regional director will issue a decision about who is eligible to be represented by our union and schedule an election.
While the NLRB’s rejection of devoting additional hearing time to the University’s position that PDRF and PDRS are not employees was a positive step in moving the process forward, the University’s willingness to attempt to block or delay a democratic vote on unionization makes clear how important it is for us to prepare to have a large majority vote in favor of unionization when the time comes.
