Solidarity, student workers! We hope you’ve been keeping cool in the sizzling heat of the past week. The GWC bargaining committee kept their cool (the room was incredibly cold, actually) during a four-hour bargaining session with Columbia’s representatives on Tuesday,
Healthcare Working Group Newsletter Volume 1
Bargaining Session #12: GWC Demands Columbia Reinstate Critical Health Plan
Student workers! Here’s a summary of our latest bargaining session — June 21, 2019: We demanded that Columbia rescind the elimination of the Student Health 100 Plan, which hundreds of student assistants currently benefit from. Columbia’s bargaining team insisted that
Statement on U.S. Department of State’s social media visa policy
On 31 May, the U.S. State Department formalized and implemented a policy requiring that nearly all visa applicants provide five years’ worth of social media account information, email addresses, and phone numbers in order to be allowed entry to the
Trump trying again to stop our movement
We learned last week that the Trump majority on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is attempting to curtail our status as workers. The NLRB plans to take advantage of the federal rulemaking procedures to revisit our historic 2016 NLRB
Session #9 – Non-Discrimination and Harassment and Other Proposals
Last Monday, May 13, we met with Columbia’s bargaining team in Lerner Hall to present a significant contract article — Non-Discrimination and Harassment — and several counter-proposals — Severability, Union-Management Committee, Employment Files, Job Posting, Appointment Notification and Job Description,
Summer Bargaining Referendum Results
Here are the results of our GWC-UAW summer bargaining referendum. Thank you to everyone who participated. In total there were 777 ballots cast, 723 of which were valid. Shall GWC-UAW bargain over the summer (between the last day of spring
Introducing Nondiscrimination and Harassment
This Monday, May 13 (Broadway Room, Lerner Hall, 1-5pm) our bargaining committee will be presenting language to Columbia designed to to address issues of harassment and discrimination through our contract’s grievance procedure. Hierarchies and power imbalances within academia leave graduate
Bargaining Session #8: Your role in bargaining makes a difference
Since our call to hear about your experiences as academic workers we continue to receive tremendously helpful emails from you all about how Columbia consistently fails to provide adequate working conditions. Your stories help us make contract proposals that directly
Bargaining Session #7: May Day!
Bargaining finally took place on Morningside campus—and on International Workers’ Day! Thank you to all those who have joined us in our ongoing efforts to negotiate a fair and strong first contract. Highlights of the session included a compelling set