.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nColumbia is weaponizing its \u201cacademic purview\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nFellow student workers,<\/span><\/p>\nIn late 2018, GWC agreed not to go on strike until April 6, 2020 in order to bring Columbia to the bargaining table. As that deadline approaches, we want to communicate some of the key areas of outstanding disagreement between GWC and the administration. As we consider the possibility of calling\u00a0 a strike to achieve a strong contract, it is imperative that we know what we\u2019re fighting for.<\/span><\/p>\nOne argument the administration has consistently used to deny us basic workplace rights is <\/span>academic purview<\/b>. Simply put, this means we are bargaining over our role as workers, not our status as students. While it can be challenging to navigate our dual role at the university, student worker unions at other universities — including NYU, the University of Washington, and the University of California — have improved\u00a0 their working conditions without interfering in the academic affairs of their universities. We can accomplish the same thing here at Columbia.<\/span><\/p>\nThis process will require equal parts common sense and reasonable compromise.There are issues that are purely academic, such as determining which classes should be taught; and there are others that are purely work-related, such as the compensation and health benefits we receive for our work. Some issues, such as how the number of students a TA can be required to teach affects workload, and the quality of education, can be more complicated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nRather than engaging with us in this process, the administration\u2019s bargaining team so far has preferred to weaponize academic purview by defining it so broadly as to encompass nearly everything we do as workers. For example, their current Discipline and Discharge article defines our \u201cacademic responsibilities\u201d as \u201cincluding but not limited to conduct that impacts the quality of teaching or research,\u201d or \u201cany assigned teaching or research responsibilities.\u201d If all teaching and research are purely \u2018academic\u2019 matters, what exactly are we bargaining over? This is clearly neither common sense nor reasonable compromise.<\/span><\/p>\nAs April 6 approaches, the University administration will likely continue claiming that <\/span>we<\/span><\/i> are the ones out of line on this issue and cite our framework agreement, which states that \u201c<\/span>any collective bargaining agreement to be negotiated with Columbia must not infringe upon the integrity of Columbia\u2019s academic decision-making or Columbia\u2019s exclusive right to manage the institution consistent with its educational and research mission.<\/span>\u201d Significantly, the framework leaves it up to both sides to reach an agreement during the bargaining process about what this means in practice. Former National Labor Relations Board Chairman and professor of labor law, William Gould, said as much in a recent article in the <\/span>Spectator<\/span><\/i>, \u201cA lot of this is for the [University and Union] to work out at collective bargaining.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nUltimately, reaching agreement on a strong contract will require the administration to drop their absurdly expansive definition of what is an \u2018academic matter\u2019 in favor of something more reasonable \u2013 something that protects both our roles as workers and the proper functioning of the University as an academic institution.<\/span><\/p>\nAs April 6 approaches, remember that this is what we\u2019re fighting for.<\/span><\/p>\nIn solidarity,<\/p>\n
GWC-UAW Local 2110 Bargaining Committee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bargaining update: The GWC bargaining committee met with Columbia\u2019s representatives again this past Friday, January 31st. Here is a quick summary of what unfolded: We reached a tentative agreement on our Training article. Columbia and GWC both passed counters on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,21,16,5,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/LOGO-PNG.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3446,"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions\/3446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}