Please Sign our Letter to the Admin Demanding a Fair Contract
We clearly need to send a stronger message to the Columbia administration to reach agreement on a fair contract.
The Columbia team came to our Thursday session with virtually no new proposals—even though more than a week had passed since we presented a substantial set of proposals intended to offer fair compromises and a pathway to an overall fair agreement. We deserve better.
Postdoc and Associate Researchers play a critical, front-line role carrying out the prestigious research that brings roughly $1 Billion per year into the University budget for our pay and benefits and the campus infrastructure. Now we do essential work on COVID-19 research and holding the critical aspects of research labs together amidst social distancing. Hundreds of us have stepped up to volunteer to help Columbia play a proactive role in taking on COVID-19 in one of its global epicenters. Many of us have also now taken time to reach out to Congress urging that they invest in Columbia and other research universities moving through and coming out of the COVID-19 crisis.
In short, we play a central role in making Columbia research happen. Yet, Columbia continues to propose a contract that significantly undervalues our work and would make only limited improvements to our basic voice in the workplace and power to address discrimination, harassment and bullying.Despite the sparse overall response to our previous proposals, we did make some progress on the grievance procedure, as Columbia made a proposal that would help establish a more efficient process for resolving disputes under our contract. While a number of more major issues remain in the grievance and arbitration article, we continue to move closer to a satisfactory resolution on that topic.
Please help us send a strong message to the administration so they bring more to our next session.
In solidarity,
CPW-UAW Bargaining Committee