Our August membership meeting will be next Monday 08/16/21 at 8:30pm.
RSVP here to attend our Membership meeting
In addition to our monthly Finances and Executive Board reports we will hear an update from the Elections Committee about the upcoming vacancy election of stewards and officers in our Local, and discuss ongoing issues faced by our International colleagues with COVID-19 travel restrictions, the vaccination requirement of Columbia for all employees (see below), and an opportunity to work with other unionized workers in academia to improve higher education, by supporting the Higher Ed Labor Summit vision statement.
Travel restrictions and NIE requirement
Some of our colleagues continue to experience difficulty travelling outside of the country or coming back to the US due to travel restrictions imposed on J-1 and H1-B visa holders. We have called on the university to take a clear position on this issue and request action to fix the delays. We are also reaching out to our Congressional representatives directly through our union’s Community Action Program to help our members and to improve the application process. In the meantime, please reach out if you have any questions or issues, or to get involved around this issue.
In addition, as we continue to work with other UAW Academic Locals to improve the situation of international researchers in the US, we want to share the Correspondence published recently in Nature regarding an open letter against this highly discriminatory travel ban: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02172-8
COVID-19 Vaccine Requirement at Columbia
The University is requiring all University faculty, researchers, staff and students to be fully vaccinated by September 2, in order to access the campus, unless there is an approved medical or religious exemption. Failure to comply could result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment. We will discuss this requirement at our membership meeting, so please attend if you have thoughts, or reach out at columbiapostdocunion@gmail.com with any issues or concerns.
CPW-UAW Local 4100 Priorities Survey
We recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of our first contract. As we move into our second year as an established local union, it is important that we continually seek ways to improve our working conditions and our lives.
Please take a minute to fill out this short survey to help shape our collective priorities for campaigns and enforcing our contract moving forwards: https://bit.ly/CPW-Priorities-Survey
In Solidarity,
CPW-UAW Local 4100 Executive Board
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