Today, our Bargaining Committee had our fourth bargaining session with the UMass Chan Administration.
UMass Chan once again did not have anything prepared at the start of the session, immediately requesting a caucus (time to break away and work as a committee). Upon our inquiry at the start of the session, UMass Chan said that they are still working on counterproposals on most articles, and need to consult with more people outside of their committee.
After over 1 hour of caucus, UMass Chan presented counterproposals on Recognition (who is considered part of the union). Then, following an additional 20 minutes of caucus time, they returned with a counterproposal on Academic Freedom (protects open inquiry, teaching, and research from interference).
As we remain dedicated to winning a strong contract for student workers as soon as possible, we decided to raise the issue of UMass Chan’s lack of preparation and use of our limited bargaining time for preparation and proposed longer, 3 hour sessions moving forward so that we can ensure progress is made. This seemed to inspire them to provide us with a response on one more article, Employment Records (ensures proper documentation and access to Student Workers’ employment records), before we ended the session .
If you are interested in attending upcoming sessions, click here to RSVP. Many thanks to our observers who showed up to support this process!
You can find all of the proposals on our bargaining tracker here.
In solidarity,
Kathleen Desevin, Graduate Student, Biochemistry & Molecular Biotechnology
Clint McDaniel, Graduate Student, Biochemistry & Molecular Biotechnology
Akshay Alaghatta, Graduate Student, Medicine
Milky Abajorga, Graduate Student, Molecular Medicine
Will Cruz, Graduate Student, RNA Therapeutics
CORE-UAW Student Worker Bargaining Committee