CROSS-CAMPUS ORGANIZING AND ADVOCACY LEADS TO MAJOR NEW IMPROVEMENTS FOR FUNDED PHD WORKERS
On Monday, Provost John Coatsworth and Engineering Dean Mary Boyce emailed PhD students detailing exciting new and improved benefits, which resulted from all our work together to make Columbia a more just, accessible, and inclusive university.
These benefits for funded PhD students include:
- Expanding child care subsidies and parental benefits to all schools.
- Waiving international student fees to the International Students and Scholars Office (ISSO).
- Increasing the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s (SEAS) cover of Facilities Fees from 25% to 35%.
Read Provost Coatsworth’s e-mail here and Dean Boyce’s e-mail here.
We applaud these improvements that have resulted from countless hours of activism by organizers and organizations across Columbia – from Graduate Workers of Columbia-UAW (GWC-UAW) and our various working groups, to the Graduate Student Advisory Council (GSAC), the Graduate Student Organization (GSO) at CUMC, the Engineering Graduate Student Council (EGSC) and others, all of whom helped win these improvements. It was through working together to organize and improve our university that we won these changes! When we organize together to make Columbia a better place we have more power to make change.
Voting “yes” for GWC-UAW in our pending unionization election means we can continue to have this kind of combined strong voice on campus to make Columbia do better on these types of issues and more, as well as win the ability to secure any improvements in a binding and enforceable contract that Columbia cannot change unilaterally in the future, as the administration appears to be doing with our current health and dental benefits options.
If you would like to get more involved in making sure we have a big vote in favor of GWC-UAW being formally recognized as our union, click here.
MAJOR PROGRESS ON THE INTERNATIONAL STUDENT WORKER TAX PROBLEMS OF 2014-15