4/25/25 Bargaining Update
After walking out on our first bargaining session, Columbia barred all but 12 members of our bargaining team from our meeting today. The university has no standing to pick which union members they want to negotiate with – in fact, it is illegal.
Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act) guarantees employees "the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection," as well as the right "to refrain from any or all such activities."
It is commonplace for a union’s negotiation team to include elected leadership, such as the union President and Vice President, in addition to elected Bargaining Committee members. During our first session on 3/28, Columbia not only engaged with Grant as a member of SWC’s negotiations team, they requested a one-on-one conversation with him while refusing to return to the bargaining table. A boss cannot pick and choose who they want to negotiate with, and is completely unacceptable.
Even as Columbia barred our president and all observers from bargaining, members took time out of their day to invite Admin to bargain over Zoom. They didn’t show!
To recap this week:
We were supposed to meet today, April 25 at 2 p.m. but Columbia refused to negotiate with all members of our bargaining team.
On Monday, a representative from Columbia Labor and Employee Relations declared our union president Grant Miner, who was unjustly expelled and fired, could neither attend bargaining nor conduct meetings with workers on campus, a right afforded to him under our contract and federal labor law. Grant is the president of UAW Local 2710, an independent institution that Columbia University has no jurisdiction over. Claiming that a union president cannot represent a union in bargaining is an absurd overreach by Columbia HR.
Leading up to this new ultimatum, Columbia insisted on allowing only 20 observers, whose names must be provided to the security desk. This is already a huge departure from past practice: in 2021, we bargained on Zoom with as many members of our union who wished to observe, up to several hundred on some occasions. It worked great, and we came to a contract agreement with the University under these conditions!
Over the course of the week, we attempted numerous times to find a solution, including proposing alternate locations off campus and on Zoom, at no cost to the University. The University refused to even consider these alternatives.
Shortly before 5 p.m. yesterday, Columbia told us that they will only be meeting with 12 members of our Bargaining Committee. We did not turn over a list of union members who will be present due to ongoing safety and surveillance concerns. We did not do this at our last session either, which Columbia HR agreed to at that time, just three weeks ago.
Since our full bargaining team could not enter the bargaining room on campus, we sent a Zoom link to Columbia. We waited for them for hours, they did not join.
Columbia’s actions this week represent their latest attempts to wear us out. They are obstructing forward progress on negotiations with no explanation.
Our union members are eager to get to the table and talk about pressing matters. We have draft proposals we have been writing and revising and approving for months. We want a stronger contract that protects non citizen student workers, protects our jobs amid funding cuts, and ensures immediate and neutral recourse for discrimination and harassment.
We remain steadfast in our position on open – that is, hybrid – bargaining. We are committed to open bargaining to all our members, including those doing fieldwork outside of NYC, those avoiding indoor spaces for health reasons, those who are afraid to come to campus because of fear for their safety because of their immigration status, and those who have already left the country for this reason. We tried to reason with Columbia and arranged an alternative location but the University refuses to honor their legal obligation to negotiate with our chosen representatives. Our members are eager to get to the table and talk about the issues impacting our workplace, including urgent health and safety concerns for our international members and guaranteeing academic freedom for our unit.
It is our right to participate in collective bargaining with representatives of our own choosing. We are disappointed and infuriated that Columbia has resorted to classic union-busting at such a dangerous time for our community members.