We have an important update on our NLRB case below, but since the international grad worker tax issues are extremely urgent, that update comes first in this email
INTERNATIONAL TAX UPDATE: COLUMBIA RESPONDS AND SHOWS IT CAN DO BETTER!
After more than 500 petition signatures in less than 24 hours, and support from New York elected leaders, Columbia has finally attempted to address affected international grad workers more clearly on how to address the errors in reporting from the 2014 tax year.
Click here to read the email Columbia Human Resources attempted to send to all those affected. In the short term, we recommend that individuals follow these steps as soon as possible. And make sure that the information provided in the email to you is consistent with your records as well. If you received previous notices saying your taxes were in error, but did not receive today’s email from Columbia HR, you should consider contacting the university at the Human Resources Service Center at https://columbia.service-now.
This is a huge step forward in getting Columbia to be more responsive to our concerns, and shows that Columbia CAN do better when we stand up for ourselves and organize through our union. Thanks to the hundreds of us who attended meetings, participated in delegations to Dean Alonso and Provost Coatsworth, and signed our petition. Please report back to us on how your calls go with the IRS in the short term, and we will reconvene soon to strategize about how to deal with the other demands in our petition or any problems that arise. In the meantime, since we still have not necessarily resolved these issues completely, sign the petition today and share it with your colleagues.
NLRB Update: Grad workers and faculty unite in urging NLRB to restore our union rights
GWC-UAW and Columbia filed our legal briefs with the NLRB yesterday as they review our petition to restore collective bargaining rights so that we can demonstrate our majority in a democratic vote and have Columbia respect our choice. Numerous amicus briefs were filed as well. You can find all of the briefs on our website.
We are particularly excited since grad student and faculty organizations across the US, representing hundreds of thousands of individuals, filed amicus briefs urging the NLRB to support our right to collective bargaining. These include: the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, the largest affiliate body of graduate student governance bodies, representing 144,000 grad students in the US; the major unions representing tens of thousands of faculty across the US, American Association of University Professors, American Federation of Teachers, Service Employees International Union- Committee of Interns and Residents, and United Steel Workers; and 46 labor-social science professors from across the US.
Final brief responses will be due on March 14 and then the National Labor Relations Board will rule on our petition, as soon as later this spring. We firmly believe that the NLRB will rule in our favor, overturning the Brown University decision, despite Columbia’s spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on outside lawyers to fight our democratic choice.
SAVE THE DATE: We will be having campus wide town halls on Friday, April 1st on both the Morningside and CUMC campuses.
CUMC, Friday April 1st – 1 to 2pm @ TBD
Morningside, Friday April 1st, 4 to 6pm @ TBD