Columbia’s Human Resources sent out another e-mail on Monday with additional guidance on how to fix our 2014 tax bills. If you didn’t receive it, read the full e-mail here. After many of us spent hours on the phone with the IRS to put holds on our accounts, only to be told by IRS agents that they did not know of how to put holds onto our accounts, the new instructions instruct us to not call the IRS and have published a letter from Provost Coatsworth to the IRS about the situation. We are glad that an administrator has finally sent something to the IRS attempting to encourage them to resolve this quickly.
While Columbia continues to make progress in helping us deal with this nightmare, we know that Columbia can still do more and they are responding to our organizing – even if they continue to deny our union’s involvement in organizing for a better Columbia.
1000+ SIGNATURES ON OUR PETITION URGING COLUMBIA TO TAKE ACTION
In one short week over 1,000 grads have signed onto our petition to support international grad workers and to urge Columbia to take action on our tax problems. Thank you to everyone who has signed and helped pass it along to their colleagues. Last week, on March 1st, in less than 20 hours we gathered over 400 signatures and delivered the first batch to Provost Coatsworth office. We thank him for the letter he sent to the IRS on March 7th and to the elected officials who have sent letters to the administration urging them to take action.
On Thursday, March 10th, another delegation will meet on the Low Steps at 12PM – PLEASE JOIN US! All international student workers and our allies are welcome to join us. Please email us at columbiagradunion@gmail.com if you can make it.
Again, we know that Columbia can still do better, as they have demonstrated since we first started organizing around this issue, if we continue to organize – and ultimately when we have a recognized union and a collectively bargained contract we can accomplish even more.
Check out a timeline of what has happened so far.
GWC-UAW Townhall on April 1st!
We will be hosting a town hall on Friday, April 1st – 1-2pm at the CUMC and 4-6PM at the Morningside Campus. At the town halls we will discuss what’s happening with our health insurance, international student issues, and how we’re going to win a union to have more power to address our concerns.