Our Bargaining Committee met again today (with 50 observers!) with the Northeastern Administration as we reach 15 months in the fight for our first contract.
We provided counter-proposals for 9 of our prior proposals to move further towards agreement with the University:
- International Graduate Student Worker Rights, which protects our international workers who make up 65% of our bargaining unit, particularly from unjust targeting by ICE and police in the workplace and from loss of visa status due to the delays and mistakes that have characterized many of our experiences with the Office of Global Services (OGS).
- Workspace & Materials, which protects our ability to have the desk or office space we need to work on campus, our ability to work remotely if we don’t, and our ability to protect ourselves during an ongoing pandemic with essential safety equipment.
- Workload, which protects us from being coerced into regularly exceeding our working hours.
- Professional & Academic Freedom, which protects your rights to speech in personal and professional contexts. The field of higher education depends on these protections so we can do our critical work of knowledge production, and now more than ever we must protect these rights.
- Appointments & Re-Appointments, which creates a transparent and simplified process for applying for and being hired and re-hired for positions.
- Appointment Security, which protects your position once you are hired or re-hired.
- Intellectual Property, which protects our intellectual work and our ability to monetize them without the university taking an unfair cut.
- Union Officers and Stewards, which empowers future union organizers to do the work necessary to enforce our first contract and bargaining our next contracts.
- Recognition, which establishes the composition of our bargaining unit, especially fellows, in line with the NLRB’s MIT decision that fellowships with work requirements (like many that Northeastern offers) are workers and therefore that these working fellows should be in our union and have union protections.
You can read these and all previously passed proposals on our website.
Despite having three weeks to work on their proposals, the university only presented two articles (compared to our nine) at the table today. They presented counters to Professional Development and Union Access & Rights, but were unprepared to explain their objections. They added language that would allow them to cut the PhD Network travel funds as early as this upcoming July (fun fact: the PhD Network’s Vice Provost is on the university’s bargaining committee, and did not say one word to oppose the potential funding cuts)! They also responded via email only the evening before bargaining to reject our proposal on Job Postings outright, rather than offer any counter, not engaging with our detailed counter and regressing to their most recent one.
Several times during the session, they could not explain the status quo policies for PhDs or why they felt our proposals differed from theirs, showing they know little to nothing about the work we put in to help this university run. Repeatedly, they could not explain why they had changed, cut, or ignored language we had presented, seemingly rejecting language just to reject it.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that our power is the only way to win a good contract.
What can you do to help move the university faster?
- Observe Bargaining! Register to attend our next Bargaining Session on March 25th at 11AM-1PM in person (details announced soon) or over Zoom. We strongly encourage you to attend in person if you’re able (you can even bring your work, but we need to pack the room)!
- Get Involved! Reply to this email and organizers will reach out to talk about how you can help.
Please reach out if you have any questions by responding to this email.
In Solidarity,
GENU-UAW Bargaining Committee