4/12/2026 Bargaining session: AI, Non-Citizen Protection, Transitional Funding, and more
Following our escalation towards a strike, the University has agreed to meet more frequently. Our next bargaining sessions are scheduled for April 28th, May 4th, and May 12th in the Interchurch Center.
Session highlights
The bargaining committee recommends tentative agreements on Training and Employment Files. Stay tuned for a poll to affirm these tentative agreements.
Columbia maintains that it is within its right to replace our labor with AI and that they are not interested in negotiating on that right.
In a win for non-citizen workers, Columbia agrees to allow people to work from abroad if they are unable to return to the US. However, the University still refuses to bargain over sanctuary campus and protections from federal agents like ICE and DHS.
We won improved access to arbitration for non-discrimination and harassment, but Columbia still refuses to discuss disability accommodations, power-based harassment, and gender/sexual identity protections.
Columbia responds on transitional funding, proposing the same language as in our previous contract and rejecting our proposed language on transitional funding for moral and ethical objections. They verbally agreed that the proposed language may have merit in some situations.
We clarified outstanding differences for holidays.
We rejected Columbia’s request for us to go to mediation.
Artificial Intelligence
While we appreciate the University’s offer to add the ability to discuss this issue in the future in Union-Management Committee meetings in the Union-Management Committee article, we do not see those discussions as a replacement for an Artificial Intelligence article.
Our bargaining committee undertook a line-by-line discussion with the University about our Artificial Intelligence Article. The University continued to broadly object to Artificial Intelligence being an appropriate subject for a collective bargaining agreement and refused to engage in detailed discussion. The University stated that the use of AI is an academic issue that goes beyond our bargaining unit and should be addressed through other avenues. We responded that AI-related protections have increasingly become a subject of bargaining across the country (including in the NYU Contingent Faculty Union’s new contract, ratified last month).
When pressed, the University insisted that they reserve the right to replace us with AI tools, viewing protections from AI replacing our labor as an infringement of their management right to give faculty the freedom to use AI technologies, sometimes as an alternative to teaching or research labor of our bargaining unit employees.
The University also objected to our request for an audit of Columbia’s use of AI, although they conceded on the importance of transparent information for all workers. They offered to provide us more information on whether our data and work is being fed to Columbia’s bespoke language learning models, among other issues we raised, but refused to bargain over it.
We will continue to press Columbia to engage with this important subject at the table.
Non-citizen workers
We won language that would mandate the University makes reasonable efforts to ensure student workers who are unable to return to the US to work from abroad. We continue to press Columbia on this to strengthen the language on it.
However, Columbia continued to object to protections from federal agents like ICE and DHS. The University stated that this was a campus-wide policy and thus not subject to a labor agreement. We disagreed and emphasized that our language represents bargaining unit employees, similar to how protections against discrimination are codified in our contract despite being wider community issues – though of course, Columbia may choose to extend such protections to the wider campus community.
NDH
We won the right for workers to have a say in interim measures (such as no-contact orders) during discrimination and harassment investigations.
We won a great improvement for workers to resolve discrimination and harassment complaints with a neutral arbitrator. In the past, workers needed to exhaust the full investigation and appeals process through OIE before they could access this step. With this proposal, Columbia is allowing us to go to arbitration in 30 business days, if a grievance remains unresolved.
Columbia still refuses to address additions related to power-based harassment and disability, stating that they feel they are unnecessary additions to Columbia’s existing policies. We will continue to press them on these, as the lack of protections around these issues have led to the unjust dismissals of many of our coworkers.
Transitional funding
The University offered a counter on transitional funding. The University only made minor modifications to the article from our last contract, and rejected all our modifications, including the right to transitional funding for objections to moral, ethical, or religious objection(s) to the funding sources that their research is dependent on, or how that research is being used. We discussed with the University if transitional funding for “unhealthy relationships” with PIs includes unhealthy relationships that emerge out of ethical disagreements. The University was not definitive but did not rule out this possibility in some situations. This remains important to our unit and we will continue to press the University on strengthening the language.
Holidays
We clarified the University’s intentions with Holidays. They stated that they are not willing to provide us an extra personal day.
Federal Mediation
We rejected Columbia’s request for us to have a federal mediator, as voted on both at Workplace Council and pre-bargaining caucus. We stated that we believe an external third party at this stage will slow down bargaining progress.
Thanks for keeping up with the bargaining process! Hope to see you at the next session