Happy International Women’s Day! Women around the world are coming together today to celebrate the struggles to advance women’s cultural, social and political equality.
In spite of these past successes, women still face many barriers. One of the many reasons that hundreds of postdoctoral researchers support forming a union is to negotiate stronger protections against sexual harassment and discrimination at Columbia.
Check out this great story in Elite Daily about how the UConn Graduate Student Union Helps Handle Sexual Harassment, where they negotiated stronger protections in their first contract and have already enforced those rights through their grievance procedure.
We write to express our frustration with the Columbia administration’s latest efforts to deny collective bargaining rights to our graduate worker colleagues and to reaffirm our commitment to form a postdoctoral workers union despite the administration’s clear desire to avoid bargaining with the academic workers who are the backbone of this great university. Click here to get involved in pushing our post-doctoral union forward.
Provost Coatsworth informed the Columbia community last week that the administration will refuse to bargain with the graduate workers union (GWC-UAW), based on their belief that graduate student workers should not be considered employees for the purpose of collective bargaining.
However, after intensive investigations and hearings the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board concluded that:
“In many respects the duties of student assistants are the same as those of admittedly ‘employee’ counterparts on the Columbia University faculty… In labs, research assistants work side by side with faculty and post-docs, performing many of the same tasks and advancing the work of the lab and the mission of the University as a top research institution.”
We remain confident our graduate worker colleagues will ultimately win full recognition of their union. But we are deeply disappointed the administration has chosen to continue fighting an expensive legal battle, rather than honor the democratic voice of the graduate workers (who voted overwhelmingly for the union) and start bargaining a fair contract with GWC-UAW.
In the case of our postdoctoral union, we at least know that Columbia cannot argue to the NLRB that we are students. However, their behavior over the last three years makes clear they would prefer not to share real decision-making power about our pay, benefits, and rights, and they may very well seek other ways to stall our effort to have a union.
With Columbia’s position more clear than ever, it is especially important that we reach as many postdoctoral researchers as possible, as quickly as possible so that we can continue growing toward majority support. The more people that get involved the more power we will have as we begin the process to secure a fair contract for postdoctoral researchers across campus.
In an email sent yesterday to the Columbia community, Provost Coatsworth announced that the administration will refuse to bargain with the graduate employee union. The administration is choosing to break the law over respecting the democratic mandate of graduate employees and bargain with their union. Graduate employees have repeatedly demonstrated that a majority of workers support the union and will not let this dissuade them from fighting for a fair contract.
The administration’s response is an attempt to stall the process in the hope that a Trump appointed NLRB will reverse the precedent setting decision establishing graduate students as workers.
Join the Graduate Workers of Columbia-UAW on the steps of Low Library tomorrow, Thursday, February 1 at 12PM in response to the Columbia administration’s hypocrisy. They have delayed respecting the graduate employees democratic choice for over three years now.
We are continuing to build toward a strong majority of postdocs supporting our union. The Columbia administrations choice to fight the mandate of graduate employees right to form a union has shown us that they will most likely be opposed to our union as well.
One year ago, graduate employees voted by an overwhelming 72% majority to form their union. After the election, Columbia’s administration decided to challenge the results in an effort to slow down the process of bargaining a fair contract.
We are very excited for the Graduate Workers of Columbia (GWC-UAW) and hope that the administration respects the democratic mandate of graduate employees.
We are excited to be having two Town Halls this week. We will be skyping in unionized postdocs from the University of California and we hope you can join us.
Morningside
Wednesday, November 29th, 6:30-7:30pm
Pupin, Room 414
CUMC:
Friday, December 1, 12:00pm-1:00pm
Physicians and Surgeons, Todd Amphitheater Room 16-405
The Columbia Postdoctoral Workers (CPW-UAW) continues to grow as postdoctoral researchers across campus discuss and sign up for the union.
We want to make it as easy as possible for people to get involved or receive more information. To do so we are holding two Town Halls/Information Sessions to discuss why we are forming a union, hear from unionized postdocs from the University of California (UAW Local 5810), and hear answers to any questions people may have about the process.
We hope to see everyone who supports our goal to form our union and collectively bargain for better research conditions! Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you want any further information.
Best Wishes,
Members of the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers (CPW-UAW)
