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Photo by Sarah Joseph
On Saturday, Earth Day, tens of thousands of people participated in the March for Science at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and numerous other cities across the U.S. Among the participants in Washington were hundreds of UAW members who rallied behind the mission of the event and spent the day celebrating science.
The passionate crowd gathered to generate a conversation about the alarming trend toward discrediting facts and scientific consensus, and restricting scientific discovery.
Sarah Joseph, a UAW Local 2110 member from the Department of Genetics at Columbia University, had a very personal reason for participating in the March for Science. “I march because without science I would not have been born. I was conceived through IVF (in vitro fertilization), and I march because without science many of my family members would not be alive today.
“I am participating to raise awareness for science and to dispel the misconception that there is such a thing as ‘your’ facts. Facts are facts. It is the interpretation of facts that is up for debate,” said Joseph.
The March for Science champions and defends science and scientific integrity, but it is a small step in the process toward encouraging the application of science in policy. March for Science organizers and participants say the best way to ensure science will influence policy is to encourage people to appreciate and engage with science. That can only happen through education, communication and ties of mutual respect between scientists and their communities — the paths of communication must go both ways. There has too long been a divide between the scientific community, the public and the politicians who represent them.
“I’m marching because I think it’s immoral for politicians to deny the basic fact of climate change when they have the chance to change that,” said Catherine Braine, a UAW Local 2110 member from the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University.
“I am also a graduate student whose research is funded by NIH (National Institutes of Health), the organization the Trump budget wants to cut by 20 percent,” Braine added. “It’s important for everyone to be involved because everyone should push for policies that acknowledge objective reality and seek to be responsible guardians of the Earth.”
As debates continue in Washington over funding of science, Saturday’s event sent a very clear message to politicians: Back up your reasons for doubting scientific evidence and, more important, back off science funding!
State of Michigan workers won a 3 percent wage increase in 2017 and a 2 percent increase for 2018 in their contract that had reopener language to discuss wage increases and health care.
“The bargaining team was successful not only in winning the two wage increases, but we also defended our health care and kept the plan as is,” said Local 6000 President Ed Mitchell.
Local 6000, which represents 15,000 state workers in administrative support and human services functions, ratified the agreement by a 98 percent margin in November. The contract expires Dec. 31, 2018.
Negotiators discussed the effect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on their health care and the potential for the plan being subject to the ACA’s excise tax. However, because of the uncertainty surrounding the tax and the entire ACA, it was decided that any changes would be discussed and implemented through the parties’ Joint Health Care Committee, with an eye toward finding ways to keep costs under the excise tax threshold.
UAW-NYU Graduate Employees Approve Only Contract Covering Private Sector Graduate Employees
The United Auto Workers announced today the ratification of the contract with New York University which covers over 1200 graduate employees,
members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee-UAW Local 2110, who perform various functions for the university including teaching and research. Once again, this makes NYU the only private university in the country with a unionized graduate employee workforce. The agreement was ratified by 99% of the membership, with nearly 1,000 members voting.
“This contract is a major step forward for our members,” said Julie Kushner, Director of UAW Region 9A. “They did not back down after being stripped of their bargaining rights in 2005.Their commitment to justice will have a huge impact on the working lives of teaching and research assistants throughout the university. This victory has already inspired other private sector graduate employees to organize.”
The agreement made substantial gains in wages, health care, including a 90% subsidy towards individual coverage and first time support for dependent coverage, childcare benefits and tuition waivers. In addition, it doubles the starting wage to $20 per hour over the life of the five-year agreement for workers at NYU’s Polytechnic School of Engineering, who perform and support cutting edge research. (Greater detail is appended below.)
“This contract will make a real difference in our lives here at NYU, and will raise the bar for private sector graduate working people nationally,” said Lily Defriend, a Ph.D candidate in the Anthropology Department. “Right here in New York City our campaign and this contract win have contributed to graduate employees at Columbia and The New School organizing at the UAW.”
After being the first group of private university graduate workers to successfully unionize in 2000, the UAW won a groundbreaking contract at NYU. In 2005 the university withdrew recognition, hiding behind a Bush-era NLRB decision stripping graduate employees of the right to collective bargaining. Undeterred, the workers at NYU fought an eight year battle for recognition and the university agreed to recognize the UAW once again subject to an election, in which they remained neutral, conducted by the American Arbitration Association. The workers voted 98.4% in favor of being represented by the UAW in December 2013.
The UAW represents more than 45,000 academic workers across the U.S., including graduate employees at the University of Massachusetts, University of Connecticut, University of Washington, University of California and California State University.
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