Bargaining Session #2
The bargaining committee met with the College for our second bargaining session on Wednesday, May 15. A big thanks to our in-person and Zoom observers, who helped show our widespread support for the union. Our team passed two more proposals to the College: Intellectual Property and Job Postings. You can read these proposals on our bargaining tracker here.
The College passed 6 counterproposals and 3 proposals, all of which can be found on our bargaining tracker here. You can find a short summary of the counterproposals below:
Academic Freedom: In their counterproposal (read here), the College removed language from our proposal that affirms academic freedom be granted to members and that would ensure the College does not take into consideration student evaluations that penalize members for expressing perspectives related to their expertise or the subject matter of the course.
Discipline and Dismissal: In their counterproposal (read here), the College removed many protections proposed by our bargaining committee including: the requirement to provide notice to the Union at the time a worker is disciplined or dismissed, protecting the confidentiality of a worker’s record of discipline and dismissal, the removal of discipline from a worker’s record if a grievance filed on discipline or dismissal resolved the issue.
Grievance and Arbitration: In their counterproposal (read here), the College proposed drastic changes to the timelines proposed by our committee. The College mandates that workers meet with their Dean before filing a grievance, and allows workers only 10 days to file a written grievance after a violation occurs. The College also proposes that they have 6-weeks to issue a response at the second step of the grievance process, which would drastically delay our ability to solve problems.
Prohibition Against Discrimination and Harassment: In their counterproposal (read here), the College cut substantial protections for workers facing discrimination and harassment. In our bargaining session, the College defended that they are only responsible for protecting employees from harassment and discrimination that comes from top-level administrators. While our bargaining committee proposed that members facing discrimination or harassment should be able to choose how they would like to respond, if they would like to respond, by filing a grievance, going through Title IX, or both, the College’s counterproposal takes away a worker’s choice. Instead, the College’s counterproposal requires any member facing discrimination and harassment to file a complaint with Title IX, a process with no timeline to resolution, before being able to file a grievance. Their counterproposal removes protections which many workers in higher education have already won (including NYU adjuncts, WPI Student Workers, Postdoctoral Researchers at Mount Sinai, and more).
Severability: In their counterproposal (read here), the College removed our provision which provides for a timeline to re-bargain any provision found to be illegal.
Union-Management Committee: In their counterproposal (read here), the College limited the number of representatives which may be on our Union-Management Committee from 7 to 4 and proposed reducing meetings from monthly to quarterly. The College also proposed that matters covered by Grievance and Arbitration cannot be discussed these meetings. We maintain that it is more productive and effective to communicate openly about matters which may become problems before they must become formal grievances.
Our bargaining committee took some time to review the counterproposals and proposals in a caucus and then asked the College questions on the counterproposals. We were disappointed to find that the College did not substantively engage with our proposals and look forward to more substantive engagement in the future.