Columbia postdocs ratify contract, averting strike

Postdoctoral workers at Columbia University have ratified a contract that provides 24-percent raises over the course of a three-year pact and establishes a $500,000 hardship fund, their union announced.

Columbia Postdoctoral Workers-United Auto Workers Local 4100, which reached a tentative agreement with university officials Oct. 24, said Wednesday that 89.4 percent of the 891 members who participated in the ratification vote approved the pact. 

The deal, which expires June 30, 2026, also includes a $1,200 ratification bonus and raises the minimum salary for postdoctoral workers from about $60,000 a year to $70,000. Associate researchers will start at $77,000, and workers will receive annual 3-percent raises. The workers are also eligible for $1,000 experience bonuses for up to seven years on the job, and 1.5 percent annual increases to the minimum salary for newly-hired workers.

“This contract is an important win for our union, containing notable gains in compensation, rights, and protections for postdocs and associate research scientists at Columbia!” the union wrote on social media.

The agreement, covering about 1,700 postdoctoral workers and associate research scientists, averted a potential strike, which was set to start the same day the contract’s ratification was announced.

“I think it’s a pretty good contract,” Elsy El Khoury, a postdoc in the chemistry department. 

Khoury, who is also a union steward, believes that the vast majority of members voted in favor of the agreement to avert a walkout. “I think people understood that if they voted no, there would be an immediate strike. We could have gotten a better contract with a strike, but this was the best contract we could get without a strike,” the postdoc said in a phone interview. 

Another gain achieved through the labor agreement is that postdoctoral fellows, who were considered independent contractors, will now be considered employees unless their fellowship explicitly states they cannot be. “We’re happy with the wins we got for fellows,” Khoury said.

The contract also establishes a $500,000 hardship fund, which could help postdocs — many of whom are immigrants — with health care, travel and visa-related expenses. Khoury explained that the university initially proposed a $300,000 hardship fund over the span of five years; the university agreed to a larger fund over a shorter period of time.

Housing issue unresolved

The pact includes increased protections against harassment and bullying. Although the union’s previous contract established a committee to look into bullying, Khoury stated the committee had not done much to address the problem. The new agreement makes bullying and harassment a grievable issue, Khoury explained.

But the union’s goal to improve postdocs’ access to housing was not realized. About 60 percent of postdocs at Columbia are from abroad and many have no credit history, making it difficult for them to rent apartments.

Radha Raghuraman, an associate research scientist at the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, and a member of the union’s organizing committee, was among the members who voted against the contract. She previously told The Chief that housing was a major concern for her since she has an international visa.

“There is no doubt the administration could have definitely done better but a majority of the postdocs seem happy from the vote,” she said in an email.

Postdoc workers and associate research scientists, who were currently eligible for childcare subsidies that amount to $4,000 per family, will now receive $5,000 subsidies. But the union sought to increase the subsidy to $10,000 per child, particularly since graduate students at Columbia, represented by SWC-UAW Local 2710, were able to obtain childcare funding per child instead of per family.

Khoury said that the union was “going to be pushing for that until our next contract. We know many people wanted more assistance with housing and childcare.”

In a statement on the contract agreement, Columbia said that “The postdoctoral researchers and associate research scientists are integral to the University’s academic and research mission, and we look forward to continuing to build upon our important relationship with them.”

The postdocs’ union, formed in the summer of 2020, is the first in the nation representing postdoctoral workers at a private university. The bargaining committee began negotiating a new contract with the Ivy League university April 20, ahead of their contract’s expiration on June 30, but reached an impasse this summer. 

In late August, 98 percent of the nearly 1,000 postdocs who participated in a strike-authorization vote approved going on strike. The two sides agreed to mediation on Sept. 22.

clewis@thechiefleader.com