Update on Negotiations for a Successor Contract with SWC
Dear Colleagues,
We write to provide an update on our negotiations for a successor contract with the Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers, Local 2710 (SWC). Unfortunately, despite good faith efforts, we have little progress to report since a month ago due to the union’s refusal to engage on the important workplace matters and terms and conditions of employment that affect all student employees.
The University has been attempting to initiate negotiations since February; thus far, we have had only one bargaining session with the SWC, on March 28. (The University was not able to go forward with the scheduled bargaining session on March 14.)
The University came to the March 28 session prepared to discuss goals, interests, and logistics and to present opening contract provision proposals. The SWC’s priority was to secure agreement to live stream all bargaining sessions via Zoom. The SWC refused to engage in any discussions of workplace matters unless the University agreed to this condition.
Laws governing union bargaining stipulate that parties cannot refuse to negotiate on account of an issue that has nothing to do with matters related to their employment. Streaming bargaining sessions over Zoom is such an issue. The University has noted that collective bargaining, including with our other unions, typically is conducted in person, through members of the parties’ bargaining committees, which allows the parties to maintain constructive focus, promotes the development of trusting relationships, protects against doxing and misleading quotation by outside parties, and encourages the candid, robust discussions most likely to produce a timely agreement in an efficient manner.
Acknowledging the union’s understandable desire for transparency, during the first session on March 28, the University agreed to accommodate 80+ union observers, in addition to the 12 members of the SWC’s designated bargaining committee, and to provide an overflow room for additional observers when the bargaining room reached capacity. Still, many of the union observers in the room persisted in video streaming the proceedings, without the University representatives’ agreement, by holding up phones and laptops. With the SWC unwilling to engage in productive discussion of any contract-related topic, the University responded in writing to reiterate our desire to start constructive negotiations and offer suggestions for how we could do so together. No meaningful progress was made.
A second bargaining session between the parties’ respective bargaining committees was scheduled for April 14, but the SWC canceled shortly before it was to begin. To keep the process moving, the University provided the union via email with the non-economic contract proposals it planned to introduce during the session. We were due to meet again on April 25, but the union again failed to attend, advising the University they would not meet in person a few minutes before the session was set to begin.
The SWC demanded as preconditions to any meeting Zoom streaming and the presence of their president, who is not a designated member of the bargaining committee and had been expelled by the University. Just as the University cannot be required to bargain via Zoom, it has no obligation to meet with a former student who was expelled after due process. A party’s right to select its representatives for collective bargaining is not absolute, and the law does not require the other party to engage with a particular representative where, as here, doing so would make good faith bargaining impossible. Despite the union’s refusal to bargain, the University sent the union a full set of non-economic proposals.
We have received no contract proposals from the union to this point. Many of the issues they have been raising publicly are significant for the entire Columbia community, and are the subjects of other efforts by faculty, students, staff, and University leaders. But they are not the subjects of collective bargaining. Wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment are the issues covered by the contract and on which we are eager to engage the union, so we can reach a successor agreement before the current contract expires on June 30. We are concerned that the union’s delays are part of a strategy to “run out the clock” and prevent us from reaching that goal.
Despite this difficult start, the University remains eager to begin productive negotiations toward a timely, fair, competitive agreement, grounded in our academic and research mission, that supports the needs of our student employees and the entire Columbia community. We have agreed to the union’s proposed date of May 9 for the next in-person bargaining session, and we hope the union will join us at the table without preconditions to begin these important discussions. We also have offered several additional dates for negotiations before and after May 9.
We will continue to keep you informed on the status of negotiations. Additional updates and information are also available under the Current Negotiations tab of the Student Benefits website.
Sincerely,
Amy Hungerford
Dean and Executive Vice President, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Cas Holloway
Chief Operating Officer