4/8/2026 Bargaining session: Tentative Agreement on Grievance and Arbitration reached
April 8th session highlights
We reached a Tentative Agreement on Grievance & Arbitration, contingent on approval from membership. A unit-wide poll has been sent out for members to affirm the tentative agreement – you can vote here.
We offered counters on Non-Discrimination and Harassment, Childcare, Holidays, and Non-Citizen Workers Rights. We had a substantive back-and-forth with the University on these topics and some concessions from the University.
The University offered a counter on Holidays and Employment Files.
We briefly touched on AI.
The University reiterated their position on International Law and Academic and Student Conduct, stating that they will not engage with these two articles as they are not legally mandated to do so. Both parties may introduce permissive subjects during bargaining but neither party is required to engage on them. We have introduced these articles as drafted by membership and the University is choosing not to respond to them.
We engaged the University on appointments and the recent cuts to IOR positions, demanding that the University restore appointments to previous levels. The University refused to concede their management right to determine hiring levels.
You can view all article proposals passed so far in the s.
Tentative Agreement on Grievance and Arbitration
We won the following:
A longer timeline for filing grievances, doubled from 4 weeks to 8 weeks, allowing for more time to have informal discussions, gather evidence, and minimize retaliation.
Optional third-party mediation, allowing grievants to appeal unsatisfactory grievance resolutions to an impartial third party. This process is non-binding; however it allows for faster and cheaper resolution of open grievances. In addition, mediation is optional (both parties have to mutually agree), and a grievant may opt to go to arbitration without going to mediation if they so choose.
The Grievance Committee and the Bargaining Committee both recommend voting YES to tentatively agree on this article, meaning that we are done negotiating on it for this round of contract negotiations and are a step closer to a fully agreed upon contract.
Non-Citizen Workers
We reached agreement on the University maintaining a list of immigration attorneys to offer to international workers. We would like SWC to work together with ISSO to determine the appropriate clinics and attorneys for this purpose and we maintain that we want the fees of those attorneys covered by the University. We also won an agreement from Columbia on holding positions open for student workers who face immigration challenges and are unable to return to the US for 60 days; we would like to extend the timeline from 60 days to one year, which we believe is appropriate because immigration challenges can take several months to resolve. However, we clarified that this does not prevent the University from hiring more people for that position as needed, as long as the job remains available to the student employee upon their return to the US.
We continue to demand the University cover legal fees and costs due to visa or immigration issues for international workers. We are also in disagreement about the steps the University must take to support a student worker’s re-entry to the US. The University’s current position is that ISSO will determine the best path forward for the student worker, whereas our proposal outlines the exact steps the University must take. The University also has not responded to our demand that student workers be able to continue receiving pay and performing duties from abroad if necessary, nor to our demands for protection from federal agencies such as ICE or DHS.
We remain hopeful that the University will engage us on these outstanding issues, given our productive discussions with them on this topic so far and their public commitment to protecting student workers from ICE and federal agents.
Holidays
We offered a counter on holidays, reducing the number of paid holidays we are requesting. We accepted Columbia’s offer of Juneteenth as an additional holiday. We maintained that the medical campus should have Election Day off like the Morningside campus. We also asked for two personal days per semester in addition to university holidays.
The University offered a counter that maintained their position of only one personal day per semester, with the medical campus receiving an additional personal day in lieu of having election day off. The University objected to offering student workers additional personal days on the grounds that it would exceed the number of holidays other employees on campus have.
Childcare
We proposed a childcare subsidy of $23,618, which is 60% of what it costs to raise a child in Manhattan. If the other parent is not employed, both parents will receive the subsidy. The University asked how we would account for an unemployed parent being able to take on childcare duties. We continue to discuss this with our parental rights working group.
Non-Discrimination and Harassment (NDH)
We offered a counter on Non-Discrimination and Harassment that moved closer to the University on the timelines to resolve complaints. The University sought to clarify our intentions behind the inclusion of certain categories in this article, such as neurodivergence and housing status, asking us how it interacts with already listed categories and existing legal definitions. We continue to work with the NDH Committee to draft a counterproposal that responds to these concerns. We are also updating our proposals to clarify how our provisions to improve access to third-party neutral arbitration, a key win of our previous contract, will interact with the Grievance and Arbitration article.
The University also gave us additional updates on power-based harassment, stating that the Anti-Bullying Working Group, which has one union representative, had developed a new definition of bullying that they would like us to work with. However, the university seems unwilling to include substantive power-based harassment protections in our contract. As written, workers do not have recourse to resolve issues regarding power-based harassment until a formal university process is established. The Anti-Bullying Working Group was convened by the University in 2021 and has not yet finalized any process.
We asked the University to offer their objections to the inclusion of sections 11–15 of our proposal, which includes disability accommodations, name, gender, and pronoun changes in all University records, and union representation in OIE meetings that could result in discipline. The University objected to the inclusion of these articles as it goes beyond protections they are legally obligated to provide. However, our argument remains that these are mandatory subjects to do with mandating access to equal working conditions in compliance with federal discrimination, disability, and labor laws.
Appointments
We engaged the University on appointments and the recent cuts to IOR positions. The University asked why this was important to us given that IORs comprise a minority of the unit. We emphasized the disruption this has had on our workers, and reiterated that job availability is a labor issue. The University insisted that this was an academic issue, and said also that they view it as an infringement on their management right to determine hiring levels and numbers of appointments. This issue remains extremely important to our unit and we will continue to press the University on it at the table.
The University also inquired as to why we are asking for funding sources to be included in our appointment letters. We explained that this is standard practice at other institutions, highlighting the MIT graduate worker union’s contract as an example. We emphasized the importance of knowing funding sources for workers whose funding may be under threat in the shifting political landscape. The University objected to this, highlighting administrative burden, which we are keen to work with them to alleviate. The University also asked about whether we are asking for this so that workers can reject work on the basis of funding source, inquiring about the relationship to our transitional funding demand. We aim to continue discussing this issue with the University as we move forward.
Artificial Intelligence
We told the university that we have modified the AI article to address their concerns. The University responded by offering to make AI a mandatory subject of our union-management committee meetings, but still refused to engage with our article on the subject.