We made progress towards a new contract at the August 31 bargaining session with the University. The University brought counters to Benefits and Childcare. We brought a counter to Non-Discrimination and Harassment.
Copies of these articles can be found in the Bargaining Proposal Tracker.
Benefits
Since their last counter on May 9, 2025, the University increased their proposal for the Student Employee Support Fund from $425,000 to $450,000. They also adjusted their proposed annual increase in the Student Employee Support Fund from 3% to $25,000. Though $25,000 represents a 5.56% annual increase, it is the same increase currently in our existing contract, despite unmet need in the health fund totalling to $344,000 in AY24-25.
The University proposed keeping the Student Employee Dependent Support Fund at $225,000 without any annual increase, meaning that the total annual increase across both funds would be only $25,000. They indicated some willingness to formalize our existing practice of reallocating unused funds from the Dependent Support Fund to the Employee Support Fund upon the Union’s request.
The University asked to hear more about our proposals for restructuring the health fund to improve processing times. At the same time, their team made multiple statements about health fund usage that were factually inaccurate. Fund usage, and our team’s experience, shows a more robust, efficiently structured health fund is necessary and possible. We will continue to push for this at the table.
The University continues to not engage with our other benefits proposals, including issues like health insurance choice. We continue to believe these are important parts of a successor contract.
Childcare
The University delivered their third counter on childcare. They made no further adjustments to their $5,750 childcare subsidy offer. Members currently get $5,500. However, the University increased its one-time reimbursement for the Adoption Assistance and Foster Parenting Program from $6000 to $7500, matching what current non-student employees already receive. They made no movement towards our position on increasing parental leave beyond 12 weeks or making subsidies available for parents of children up to 18 years of age.
Non-Discrimination and Harassment (NDH)
We accepted some of the University’s language in sections 4a, 4b, 6, and 8. These changes tighten the language of the article and clarify some of the processes discussed.
We have reasserted the following demands in our counter.
Section 2a: For Title IX cases, that OIE will inform the student employee of their right to inform the Union.
Section 8: That “abusive conduct and/or bullying can occur at any time or place”; that students “may” discuss their concerns with their supervisor; and a link to the University’s own anti-bullying initiative and resources.
There was substantial discussion at the table on Sections 10–13. We reasserted the importance of subjects on which the University has not sufficiently engaged, particularly parental accommodations, disability rights, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and OIE confidentiality. The University argues that these subjects are sufficiently addressed in pre-existing policies (university, city, and state-level). We maintain the position that policies can change, and believe it is important to have insurance in the contract..
Columbia has still not delivered us a written counter on compensation for this successor contract. The union has worked over the summer to move towards the University’s position in almost all of our articles, including progressing on articles the University said we needed to in order to get a compensation article from them. Our workers are tired, frustrated, and underpaid. We will continue to fight for this agreement and hope to see movement on the other side.