8/1/25 Columbia stonewalls extention negotiation, slashes workers’ jobs
After several days and multiple explicit requests, SWC has still received no direct response from Columbia University regarding our counterproposal for a potential contract extension, despite expressing our desire to engage Columbia in negotiations on this issue. Instead of responding to our communications, Columbia instead sent an email to the entire University misrepresenting our discussions—see a full correction of the inaccuracies in their email here. Our correction provides a more comprehensive perspective regarding key issues in the contract extension such as pay, timeline, mediation, and student worker safety, among others. You can find a detailed comparison of the substantive differences between our extension proposal and the University’s at the end of this blog.
Today’s update of the Bargaining Blog will provide additional context and detail about our attempts to negotiate a fair contract extension with Columbia, and our efforts to get negotiations back on track. We will also provide an update on our attempts to initiate discussions with Columbia regarding instructional roles in the Core curriculum, and concerning reports that the University may be withholding appointments for graduate students as a bargaining chip in our negotiations. If you want Columbia to release appointments for instructional roles in the Core and continue their past appointment practices, we are asking folks to sign onto an open letter/petition. You can sign at this link.
Contract Extension - Attempted Negotiations
Following our delivery of a counterproposal, the University sent a response which didn’t even acknowledge our proposed terms. In response, SWC has attempted to re-focus discussion on the substantive points of an extension. On Sunday, July 27th, the Bargaining Committee requested a point-by-point response to our counterproposal via email. The University never responded to that request—and still has not done so as of today. We continue to welcome any concrete response to our counterproposal that would move discussion forward.
On Monday, July 28th, SWC held a caucus to collectively discuss and vote on our next steps given the University’s lack of engagement regarding the substantive terms of our counterproposal. At this meeting it was decided that the Bargaining Committee would reach out to the University to suggest a meeting to take place over Zoom, or another online platform, which would not set precedent for its use in future negotiations—allowing discussion of an extension in a timely manner.
Columbia has insisted that SWC come to an in-person meeting over the summer, at a time when much of our Bargaining Committee and membership is away from campus, to discuss Ground Rules for negotiations. We are simply not able to meet the timeline arbitrarily established by the University on the terms they have set—and we suspect that this is the point. The University knows the issue of Zoom access has been essential for moving negotiations forward and has decided to block further discussion on a contract extension by making this a barrier to negotiation and creating arbitrary, impossible deadlines. SWC and the Bargaining Committee have taken several steps to provide an avenue for discussion around a potential contract extension, including:
Requesting that the University respond with a counterproposal to the draft Ground Rules for negotiations which we first sent them in April;
Requesting substantive responses to our extension counterproposal via email;
Offering a first meeting solely for the purposes of negotiating ground rules, at which we could establish mutually agreeable terms which address the University’s stated concerns regarding transparent bargaining.
The University has ignored each of these attempts to move discussions forward and explicitly refused to discuss ground rules for three months now. Instead of engaging with the terms of our proposed contract extension, they have ignored our requests for substantive discussion and emailed the University community misrepresenting our proposals. Rather than accepting or even working towards a meeting in a manner that our team can attend, they have continued to impose arbitrary conditions and deadlines, implying that either we accept an extension on their terms, or no extension is possible.
The University’s actions are not the actions of a party interested in negotiating in good faith and coming to a fair agreement. They are the actions of a bully, attempting to force our membership to accept unfair terms and using their access to universitywide communications to lie about their own role in these discussions.
Core Instructional Roles
At our meeting on July 28th, SWC membership also voted to suggest a meeting of the Union Management Committee (a group of Union members and University administrators which is intended to meet to discuss and address workplace issues collaboratively) to directly address another concerning matter, which is that Core preceptorships and teaching appointment letters are being withheld dangerously close to the start of the fall semester.
Faculty have suggested to us that these Core preceptorships and teaching appointments are being intentionally held to exert pressure on our union to accept a contract extension that the University has made no attempt to negotiate. In fact, the university’s offer of an extension at all seems to have been made solely to paint us as recalcitrant rather than as a meaningful point of negotiation, given that their most comprehensive response to our proposal was sent, not to us, but to the wider Columbia community. We base our interpretation of this situation not only on our own communications with Columbia, but on information which faculty have shared with us directly. This is a callous use of the livelihoods of our members as a bargaining chip. Moreover, it communicates a willingness on Columbia’s part to further disrupt University education, particularly for undergraduates, in order to spite SWC. Cutting and casualizing graduate teaching positions is an unnecessary additional interference in the academic conditions of this University, and a clear illustration of union-busting.
We have asked the University point-blank to confirm or deny whether appointments are being intentionally withheld for these purposes. So far they have continued their pattern of obstinance and ignored our reasonable request. We have been told, privately, that Columbia has confirmed this is an attempt to break a prospective strike. A hypothetical strike, to be clear, has not even been brought to a vote by SWC. As we continue to attempt to negotiate a contract in good faith, Columbia continues to demonstrate they have no such interest.
As we wait for Columbia to respond to our inquiries and engage with us on the extension and withholding of jobs from our members, SWC is asking the broader instructional community in NYC to refuse to replace our jobs by signing this petition. We will also be on campus tabling with information about the withholding of jobs between 8/4 and 8/8 and invite our members and community members to volunteer to learn more about the situation and how we can organize to protect graduate instruction.
Comparing SWC’s Contract Extension Proposal to Columbia’s
SWC and Columbia’s proposals for a contract extension differ on five substantive issues: Pay, Timeline and Mediation, Worker Safety, Ground Rules, and Appointments. We outline key differences on each of these issues below, explain why SWC has proposed the terms we have, and why we feel our proposal is better for all parties.
Pay
Columbia’s proposed terms include: 2% raises for Student Employees on appointment (to $49,052 for 12-month appointments and $36,782 for 9-month appointments); an increase of $3,770 to the summer stipend for students on 9-month appointments in years 1-5 for a total of $10,135, but no increase for those in year 6 or beyond); a 50c/hr. increase in the hourly minimum wage (to $23.00/hr.).
SWC’s counterproposal included: 5% raises for Student Employees on appointment (to $50,083 for 12 month appointments and $37,562 for 9 month appointments); an increase of $4,175 to the summer stipend for students on 9-month appointments, in all years of funding, for a total of $10,540; and a 5% hourly minimum wage increase to $24.20/hr.
While we appreciate Columbia’s movement on pay parity for 9-month workers and offer to implement this immediately, their offer still falls short for many of us. Columbia wants to raise some of our rents by ~2.8%, but only raise our salaries by 2%. A fair extension warrants raises at least above Columbia’s rent hikes and inclusion of all workers, regardless of their year of funding. This doesn’t even take inflation into account—a 2% raise is essentially a decrease in net compensation compared to cost of living, and our unit already makes the lowest salary compared to local cost of living relative to any other Ivy League institution.
We think our counterproposal is more than fair. While it’s true that this has been a challenging year for Columbia, by their own account the University has been in excellent financial health in recent years, recently had over $1 billion in federal grant funding unfrozen, and found the money to pay $200 million in ransom money to the federal government. A 5% raise for student workers would hardly bankrupt Columbia. Instead of laying blame on our union, we would propose that Columbia consider a reasonable cap on exorbitant administrative salaries to ensure all members of our community are able to meet New York's challenging cost of living.
Timeline and Mediation
The University proposed a one-year extension to the contract, with the provision that if the parties have not reached a deal by the end of the 2025 calendar year, we enter mediation. In response, SWC proposed a three-month extension through September without mediation as a requirement.
On the surface, Columbia’s proposal might seem reasonable and mutually desirable. However, what these terms actually do is lock us into a protracted process which hampers SWC’s ability to negotiate. During our first round of contract negotiations several years ago our teams turned to mediators at two separate points, which resulted in drawn-out negotiations without meaningful progress on the topics at hand. SWC is always willing to consider mediation if and when it feels appropriate, but we think a shorter extension with mediation as an option when needed, instead of mandatory mediation after less than four months of bargaining, will help us get to a deal quickly and fairly.
What Columbia actually wants with their proposed timeline is to prevent SWC from being able to strike for the next year. We understand that even mentioning a strike might be upsetting—strikes are difficult and have real impacts on all of us. We don’t take them lightly. SWC never wants to strike. However, striking is an option we always have to consider because it is how we ensure Columbia is willing to take our concerns seriously. In our first contract campaign, Columbia wouldn’t even negotiate over our pay until we initiated a strike. A strike is avoidable if the University is willing to hear our concerns and come to the table with serious proposals to address them. This is the key difference between our timeline proposals: Columbia wants a contract, while SWC wants a fair contract.
Worker Safety
Whereas Columbia’s proposal for an extension only included details regarding pay, timeline, and mediation, SWC proposed that we also immediately address one of the most pressing current issues facing our campus: student safety. Specifically, SWC’s proposal for a contract extension included modifications to the existing International Students article which would have prohibited Columbia from sharing international students’ information with federal agencies unless required to do so by law, and committed the University to not using immigration status as coercive leverage in hiring or disciplinary processes.
The safety of all members of Columbia’s campus is a core concern for our union. In the political context we find ourselves in, international students are particularly vulnerable to targeting. This is not a part of our contract that should be forced to wait. Our proposals are common sense, just, and fair. We see no reason why Columbia would not want to codify these protections in our contract language as quickly as possible.
Ground Rules
Columbia’s proposal suggested no ground rules. In response, SWC offered that our parties come together to negotiate mutually agreeable ground rules for negotiations by no later than August 1st. The University has still not responded to this aspect of our proposal and it appears that our offer will remain unacknowledged.
Transparency in negotiations is a well-known sticking point for our parties at this point. SWC remains committed to developing protocols for negotiations which are both secure and transparent. Our union has strong systems for digital security in place which we have developed and tested over the last several years of internal organizing. We continue to believe that we can reach mutually agreeable terms on this issue. The only barrier to doing so is Columbia’s refusal to even discuss them.
Columbia has continued to misrepresent these discussions and insist that SWC is being unreasonable on this issue. On the contrary, we attempted to initiate these discussions in January, and even agreed to meet in person to discuss ground rules in March. At that meeting Columbia, after promising via email that we could discuss in person, flat-out refused to even address the topic. A counter-proposal to our suggested ground rules would be a small but meaningful sign that the University is willing to discuss this and is serious about reaching mutually agreeable terms rather than simply imposing their own.
Appointments
Our proposal included a memorandum of understanding that Columbia would release appointments for all workers and not hold them hostage as a bargaining chip in negotiations. Columbia refused to respond. As of today, while some of our members are still waiting on their appointments, it has become clear that instructional jobs have been cut across departments and the Core. Columbia has cut almost every graduate instructor job and is holding the remaining instructor jobs hostage. Meanwhile, the University has yet to substantively respond to our extension proposal.
For all the reasons we outline above, we have reason to believe that Columbia deliberately used appointments—and instructor of record jobs for the core in particular—as a point of leverage to force us to accept an unfair extension and smear us in University-wide communications, with no intentions of ever actually releasing these jobs to our unit. This is harmful to our members, their students, and their faculty, but above all it is a cruel and callous strategy which uses the livelihoods of members of our community as negotiating chips to bully us into submission.
Our proposal would have brought us to the table under fair terms. Columbia doesn’t want fair terms. They want to force us into submission. Ask yourselves: are these the actions of an employer bargaining in good faith?