Sign up for the next bargaining sessions on Tues, Oct 14 and Wed, Oct 29!
One day after delivering an open letter signed by 75% of postdocs demanding that WCM address financial uncertainties by agreeing to a fair layoff process instead of insisting on having the ability to unilaterally change our contract through Force Majeure, we held our 39th bargaining session with the WCM administration.
At the start of the session, WCM proposed a package without Force Majeure. This is a significant win! Your consistent pressure and willingness to stand up forced WCM to give up on their unprecedented attempt to undermine our contract. However, their package contained no movement towards us on our other demands—only 30 days of notice for layoffs, no emergency support fund, no relocation assistance, no backpay, and no rent caps. WCM emphasized that they will add Force Majeure back into the contract if we do not ratify it by Wednesday, October 29th.
After we asked WCM a number of questions and confirmed additional bargaining dates (Tuesday, October 14th, and Wednesday, October 29th), we shared a counterproposal back to WCM, which reasserted a 3-month notice of layoffs and made significant movement towards WCM, such as removing the condition that WCM only has the right to engage in layoffs due to sudden, urgent, and unforeseen extraordinary economic circumstances that cause large-scale operational disruptions, delaying the implementation of the relocation assistance and emergency support fund benefits, setting rent caps at 3%, and moving to 10 days off per year without loss of pay for visa renewal. You can review all the proposals exchanged on our bargaining tracker. We proposed an additional Zoom session before then to keep the process moving. Now we await WCM’s response in our next session.
The removal of Force Majeure is the direct result of the consistent support, participation, and advocacy of postdocs across campus, and opens up a path toward reaching a fair agreement. We appreciate WCM’s movement, and hope that they remain responsive to our remaining priorities, which we’ve now narrowed in an effort to reach an agreement. Particularly, under WCM’s Layoff provision, postdocs could be laid off for any reason, not just lack of funding, and would receive merely a month’s notice before termination, which is not nearly enough time to look for alternate employment, especially for international postdocs who might be forced to leave the country due to insufficient notice periods. We remain committed to fighting for equitable notice periods and moving as swiftly as possible to reach agreements on the other outstanding economic articles.
This movement would not have been possible without a supermajority of postdocs participating in actions like our practice picket and open letters. While we believe that today’s session brings us much closer to a final agreement, it is clear we need to more strongly convey to WCM the importance of having fair layoff process in order to reach a full agreement that meets our priorities and affords equitable economic conditions for all of us, especially at a difficult and precarious time for scientists and international workers in the United States. Stay tuned for more updates soon on how we can keep up the progress to win a fair contract NOW.
As always, let us know if you have any thoughts or questions.
In solidarity,
Krithika Karthigeyan, Department of Pediatrics
On behalf of the WCMPU-UAW Bargaining Committee