At our last membership meeting we voted that we will be meeting on the third Thursday of the month at 6:30pm through May. Mark your calendar for our next membership meeting on February 17th. 

We also had an initial discussion about the possibility of SWC joining our Local. This dialogue focused on the differences in bargaining tactics used by SWC and ourselves, and also on the need to better understand how a joint local would function. As this decision has the potential to impact every aspect of our union, we would like to have much more discussion with members about the pros and cons and do more research on how adding the 3,000 student employees in SWC into Local 4100 union could affect postdoc/ARS representation. We would also like to invite members of other academic unions at universities with joint postdoc/student unions (such as 4121 in the University of Washington) or separate postdoc and student unions (such as 5810 at the University of California, a Postdoctoral Local working in close collaboration with 2865 Local of Grad Students) to share their perspectives with us at future membership meetings. At the same time, we will continue our work to win a university-wide policy against bullying and move to our next contract campaign.

Yesterday evening, some members of our Executive Board met with SWC members to share our experience with forming a new local union, and also discussed different ways we could collaborate, including having regular meetings between our units, and possibly forming a joint Local in the future based on what our membership decides. To start things off, we hope to  organize a joint town hall meeting around mid-February about the policy recommendation that the university-wide anti-bullying committee has been working on. Keep an eye on your inbox for a final date!

If you have any additional suggestions, questions or comments don’t hesitate to reach out.

CORRECTION CPW-UAW 4100 Elections Timeline – At the opening of the nomination email we sent last Friday there was a mistake regarding the deadline for candidates to send their statements. Candidates must send statements with their acceptance of nomination, by 2/18 the latest. Click here to see the corrected timeline on our website.

In Solidarity, 

CPW-UAW Elections Committee

P.S. – To stay informed about our union, make sure to check our website columbiapostdocunion.org, and follow us on Slack, Twitter and Facebook!