Sinai has denied our right to unionize for long enough–add your name to call for an election here!

This summer marks a full year since we filed for union recognition with the National Labor Relations Board, with support from over 80% of graduate student workers. For more than 365 days, the administration at Mount Sinai has actively obstructed our right to unionize.

First, they refused to meet with us to discuss a fair and neutral process for recognizing our union, leaving us to pursue recognition through the National Labor Relations Board. Once we filed, they further delayed the process with the baseless claim that we are not workers. This claim belittles our contributions to research, and is contrary to existing precedent set by unionized PhD student workers at Columbia and cemented by PhD student workers at more than 25 other private institutions, including NYU, Worcester Polytechnic, Harvard, USC, Caltech, MIT, Yale, Stanford, and many others.

Sinai is now benefitting from the slow turnaround time of the overburdened National Labor Relations Board, which has yet to make a decision in our case. However, nothing is stopping Mount Sinai from withdrawing their unfounded objections to our union, and allowing us to proceed with a fair election.

In response to Sinai’s efforts to stall the process, student workers have continued to organize and build our campaign, including preparing for our future negotiations. So far, more than 80% of current graduate student workers have filled out bargaining surveys. Collectively, we will be ready and able to bargain with the Sinai administration shortly after winning our union vote. The only thing stopping us is Sinai’s continued efforts to prevent us from exercising our democratic rights. We need to make Sinai stop stalling so that we can move forward.

It’s time to show Sinai that we won’t tolerate their delays any longer. As a first step, graduate student workers are signing onto an open letter to the Mount Sinai Administration, calling on them to drop their challenges to our union and let us proceed with an election. The more of us who participate, the more strongly we can show Sinai that a majority of student workers demand the opportunity to vote now!

In solidarity,

Tri Dong, Joshua Grey, Sam McConnell, Sanutha Shetty, Alissa Valentine

Members of SSW Organizing Committee