September 6, 2024

Dear Faculty Colleagues:

I am writing to share an update in contract negotiations with the United Autoworkers Union (“UAW”) which represents stipended graduate Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants, as well as hourly graduate students performing teaching or research services on the Boston, Burlington, and Nahant campuses. In case you are not aware, negotiations have been ongoing with the UAW since December 2023.

Our approach to union negotiations from the beginning has been different from other institutions. We led by proposing a comprehensive agreement in the second bargaining session seven months ago that included provisions commonly found in graduate union contracts, such as guaranteed stipend and hourly rate increases, paid time off and holidays, a health and dental expense support fund, paid parental leave, weekly work limits, paid personal time, as well as provisions on anti-discrimination and harassment, no academic retaliation, workplace safety — altogether more than 20 different contract terms. We have taken the university’s obligation to negotiate in good faith seriously from day one.

Unfortunately, the Union refused to discuss our comprehensive proposal, and instead announced its intent to bargain “piecemeal,” one issue at a time. It took the Union until the end of August to bring forward most of its proposals and it was not until the August 26^th bargaining session that its comprehensive economic proposal was shared, and only after repeated requests from the University. The Union’s decision to wait months to reveal its economic demands along with what it promoted online as the “remaining” contract proposals (9 in total) appears intentional, perhaps based on the assumption that it would create a pressure point in negotiations just as graduate students were returning to campus. It is unfortunate, because the parties could have been further along in bargaining if the Union had pursued a different strategy.

Although we now have the Union’s economic proposal, there is no sign of a genuine interest in reaching agreement. Many of the Union’s demands are concerning and unreasonable, including by way of example the right of students to pursue arbitration over academic workloads, the right to bring their children to work in classes or labs, exclusive intellectual property ownership of anything “created or made” by a graduate student, the obligation to fund any conference travel students believe is part of their professional development, the right to unlimited paid sick and personal time if “reasonable,” the right to any requested accommodation without the need to provide supporting medical documentation, dedicated desk space for every student in the unionized group (over 3,000), a $60,000 minimum PhD stipend, and $58 per hour minimum for any hourly work. The Union is also demanding an expansion of the bargaining unit to cover PhD fellows, which is contrary to the Union’s position with the NLRB that fellows should be excluded. More information about our negotiations since last December and the Union’s demands can be viewed at our bargaining information update page, which I encourage you to read: Graduate Student Union Negotiations – Northeastern Provost.

The University’s commitment to reaching a fair agreement with the Union was demonstrated by its early comprehensive proposal. We have attempted to engage the Union in a constructive discussion in bargaining and have been met with intransigence. We will continue to bargain in good faith and explore areas of common ground, but the Union’s positioning thus far is more reflective of a desire to argue than a willingness to reach agreement. We hope that will change.

Please follow our bargaining update page for more information about the state of negotiations as the semester progresses.

Regards,

David Madigan
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs