Bargaining Session 16

On Tuesday, June 16, the University and the Student Workers of Columbia union (SWC) met for a sixteenth bargaining session, in person at the Interchurch Center, to continue negotiating the terms of the union’s successor contract. Once again, no meaningful progress was made, as SWC continues to attempt to bargain over academic matters outside the bounds of the Framework Agreement and the union’s prior contract and to seek special provisions for its own membership on campus-wide issues that affect the entire Columbia community. The parties remain far apart on virtually all major elements of a labor contract.     

During the session, SWC put forward a revised counterproposal on Non-Discrimination and revised proposals on Union Activity/Access (which the union calls “Union Rights”), Academic Freedom, and Union Leave and Union Release Time. The University presented a revised counterproposal on Non-Discrimination and a counterproposal on Union Activity/Access.  

With its latest Academic Freedom proposal, SWC continues to seek academic freedom rights beyond those afforded to faculty under the University Statutes, as well as the right to grieve an alleged violation of those rights outside the Statutes. SWC’s Union Leave and Union Release Time proposal, though revised, still would require the University to provide full student employee compensation to union members for doing full-time union work, while not having any teaching or research duties and regardless of degree milestone requirements.  

Both proposals encroach on the Framework Agreement’s critical distinction between bargainable employment matters and academic and operational matters that must remain under the University and faculty’s control. Indeed, SWC’s bargaining representatives explicitly confirmed during this session that they still intend to bargain over academic issues and that they continue to believe that the Framework Agreement does not apply to them. This fundamental disagreement over the appropriate scope of collective bargaining remains the central obstacle to progress on a successor contract.  

The parties have agreed to future in-person bargaining sessions on July 9 and 28. The union also requested that the University propose dates for bargaining sessions in August, and the University is checking availability at Interchurch for those meetings. 

The University remains committed to reaching a fair, competitive, and sustainable agreement with SWC that benefits all of our student employees and the entire Columbia community.