1/23/2026 bargaining session: Compensation, Grievance & Arbitration, Noncitizen Workers, and Health & Safety
At the bargaining session on January 23, we delivered our Compensation Article to the University, and they returned counteroffers for Grievance & Arbitration, Noncitizen Workers, and Health & Safety. You can find live notes from the session here, and all proposals by both sides linked on our tracker.
Below is a summary of what happened.
Compensation
Members shared testimonies on the cost of living crisis affecting us all. Here is an excerpt of the testimony a member delivered to the University’s representatives:
I'm a first-gen student from a family of construction workers and nurses. As an adult, I spent many years living below the poverty line and dealing with food insecurity. I frequented soup kitchens and the discount aisle at grocery stores. During this time, I also developed a useful skill: I learned how to overcome the shame and social stigma our society attaches to eating from the trash. I learned which dumpsters had the best food and at which times ... I learned how to be adaptable to and happy with whatever the dumpster had in store for me on that day. I ate pretty well off of other people's refuse.
When I was admitted to a PhD program at Columbia, I figured that I would be spending much less time in a dumpster and much more time doing research … I didn't realize until moving here that this $40,000 does not go far... What I initially thought, as someone living below the poverty line, would most definitely be a pay raise, was actually in effect a pay cut.
…
I hope that Columbia will consider paying us enough so that I can spend more time researching and less time digging around in trashcans. Thank you.
We passed our compensation proposal, which was drafted by our Cost of Living Working Group with democratic input from all of our members. The proposal includes:
76k/year minimum salary for PhD, DMA, and MFA student workers and $36.50 minimum wage for hourly student employees;
A Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA), meaning that raises should, at minimum, match inflation;
Pay parity for all PhD student workers;
For departments where graduate workers are paid by PI/lab grant money, wage increases for student workers should come from a central university fund to ensure that they do not pose a burden to individual faculty members or labs.
The University avoided engaging with or responding to the testimony we presented. We answered questions from the University’s bargaining team about the mechanics of our proposal, and they told us they would respond to our proposal once they receive more of our articles. Even though we didn’t receive a substantive response, we know a little bit about what the University wants to pay us: last summer, Columbia offered PhD workers in our unit $48k per year and pay parity across different departments as a part of a contract extension proposal. We welcomed their movement towards pay parity, but recognize that this compensation amount falls far short of any definition of living wage in New York City. We delivered a counter offer on July 10 but received no response. The university unilaterally implemented a 3% raise after workers marched on the admin’s bargaining team in October, but this falls far short of inflation. We look forward to Columbia’s response to our proposal at a future session.
Non-Citizen Workers
It has been three months since we delivered our proposals on Non-Citizen Workers on October 6. After declining to respond initially, the University finally produced a counter after continued pressure, but removed virtually all of the provisions that we added to protect our community. As a reminder, our initial proposal included:
Minimal-legal sharing: ensure that international student worker information is not shared with the Department of Homeland Security beyond what is legally required.
Establish Columbia as a sanctuary campus (which the University voluntarily did in 2017, but quietly retracted over the following years).
Protect non-citizen workers’ jobs and provide legal and financial assistance to workers facing issues entering the US or deportation threats.
In the case that a non-citizen student worker cannot stay in the US, make accommodations to ensure that they are still able to complete their work and continue progress towards their degree abroad.
Make available immigration legal and accounting services to all international student workers.
Provide English Language Learners (ELL) services to international student workers and dependents free of charge.
Reimburse relevant fees for non-citizen student workers and establish a hardship fund.
Allow non-citizen student workers to use the full 12 months of CPT allotted to them by USCIS.
Instead of engaging with any of these demands, the University’s response was edited against the International Students article in our previous contract and includes extremely minor changes: stipulation that the University will sponsor presentations from an attorney to address immigration policy changes (which falls far short of the legal assistance we proposed), a vague promise for “individual support” in case a worker can’t re-enter the country, and an invitation to apply for funding through the existing ISSO system.
We were incredulous that the University thought that its proposal addressed the urgent needs of our non-citizen workers. We reminded them of the University’s track record:
In March 2025, Columbia immediately and unnecessarily disenrolled Ranjani Srinivasan after the Trump administration arbitrarily revoked her visa. An ISSO staff member seemed “amused” and even laughed when Ranjani informed her on Zoom that ICE was at her door.
CU’s Public Safety officers escorted ICE into Yunseo Chung’s university-owned residence.
Columbia remained silent and provided negligible support to Mahmood Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi following their abductions and detentions by ICE.
In response, University administrators stated that they consider ISSO sufficient for addressing the needs of noncitizen student workers, claiming that the university has done “a fantastic job.” We find this claim ridiculous and frankly offensive, and we made that clear at the bargaining table. We are living in an era of extremely escalated risks for non-citizens and those who care for them; just last week, ICE agents murdered a second protestor in Minneapolis. In this context, Columbia is refusing to commit to the concrete steps we have proposed that would bolster worker safety and peace of mind in a turbulent political landscape. This continues the trend of total capitulation to the federal government at community members’ expense.
Health & Safety
Again, Columbia refused to engage with any of our proposals, and instead returned an offer marked against the Health & Safety article in our current contract. Their only change was the offer that the Union may request additional meetings of the Health and Safety Committee. Among our proposals that Columbia cut are our demands that Public Safety stop the use of force against our workers and that cops not be allowed on campus.
Grievance & Arbitration
CU admin accepted our proposal for third-party mediation, but, once again, removed many other provisions. We will discuss their proposal as a unit and return with a counteroffer at a later session.
Non-Discrimination and Harassment
Columbia delivered their counteroffer, which makes largely technical changes to the language in the previous contract. Both sides agreed to discuss this at a future session for the sake of time.
Members’ responses to the bargaining session
Nearly 100 workers attended bargaining. Here is what some of our members had to say about the session:
“The University is deliberately treating international workers and non-citizen students as essentially disposable labor. And they say that they're doing enough to protect non-citizen students when we know that this isn't true. … And I think what's especially frustrating is [the idea] that the university would not exist without non-citizen workers.” – An undergraduate student worker in SEAS
“We kind of have the same goal. We want students to have a better life. But, it feels like a lot of what the University's doing is kind of using various tactics to make it less of a productive conversation.” – A PhD worker in computer science
“The idea that things that are pertinent with the university as a whole shouldn’t be negotiated with us because we are only a subset of the university is really interesting … Anything that’s related to our status as workers but related also to our status as members of Columbia, as individuals is off the table for them. It says a lot about what their goals are in bargaining. … It’s related to their broader mission to destroy democracy in the workplace. It’s related to how they’ve also tried to undermine faculty-governance at the senate level. They want to remove every aspect of democracy that enables us to determine our condition of living.” – A PhD worker in social sciences
Our next bargaining sessions will be on February 11th and 23rd. Until then, get involved by talking to your coworkers and coming to Workplace Councils, GBMs, committee meetings, or department town halls. We have a world to win!