We hope you had a restful holiday break. Our Bargaining Committee met with Northeastern Administration last Monday with counter proposals on Health and Safety, and Workplace and Materials. Several of our union members provided testimony on their own experiences with Northeastern in support of the changes we are asking for in these articles. These testimonies demonstrated that Northeastern’s Disability Resource Center is currently entirely inadequate for providing reasonable accommodations in a timely manner, the lack of maintenance of older Northeastern buildings creates a health and safety risk for grad workers in those buildings, Northeastern’s current policies on providing ergonomic workplace equipment fall far behind what is standard in industry jobs, and that Northeastern’s policies do not do enough to prevent the spread of infectious disease on campus.
This underscores the need for the articles we’ve proposed on Health and Safety, Workplace and Materials, and Accessibility that provide protections for all grad workers against all of these cases. Thank you to everyone who provided testimony at the bargaining table: your shared experiences clearly illustrate the systemic problems that the administrators are either unaware of or neglect. We assert that our proposed solutions will not only benefit the health and well being of grad workers, but the entire Northeastern community.
In response to this firsthand testimony we presented at the table, the university questioned whether the issues being presented were actually systemic, stated that the claims in one account were an “exaggeration,” or otherwise dismissed the testimony with no comment.
Finally, the university presented a new “take it or leave it” package proposal on compensation and benefits. This proposal was a slight improvement over the university’s previous position– offering a $43,000 minimum stipended salary, an $18 minimum rate for hourly workers, and 2.5% annual increases; however it does not guarantee any summer funding, and the proposal is still significantly below the cost of living in Boston. Additionally, dental coverage and dependent healthcare coverage was offered, but with no specific details on what kinds of treatment would be covered. Furthermore, the coverage only applies to stipended graduate workers who are paid for a full 12 months. With no guaranteed summer funding, this means that a significant portion of our members would still not receive any dental coverage under this proposal. Other essential benefits, such as vision coverage, were also missing from the university’s proposal.
Through our organizing efforts, the University has moved on their initial position on compensation and benefits, but the admin’s proposals are far from what we need to address the problems that motivated us to form a union. They are still refusing to take us seriously, and it’s becoming clear we may have to make them listen.
What can you do right now?
Our organizing has made a difference, as evidenced by the improved proposals that the admin has been sharing across the bargaining table. Some quick actions you can do to help are:
- Join 1,200 grad workers in signing our Contract Now Petition, and share it with your fellow grad workers.
- Reply to this message to join our Slack.
- Register to come to our next bargaining sessions. Join our organizing committee (every Wednesday at 6PM) to help build our union, and win a strong first contract!
- RSVP to attend our next Bargaining Session on Monday December 9th at 1PM in RP909 or over Zoom.
In Solidarity,
GENU-UAW Bargaining CommitteeP.S. The full text of our proposals and all previously passed proposals can be found on our website.