Following their standard procedures, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has scheduled our hearing to start Thursday July 6, 2023. The purpose of the hearing is to reach a decision on voting eligibility and other details around an election to determine representation for collective bargaining. We are preparing for these hearings with our legal counsel and we have a number of student workers serving as witnesses in these proceedings. Please let us know if you are interested in attending the hearings on Zoom (form link here). We need to provide an observer list to the NLRB by July 3, and the NLRB will determine how many people can observe.
Last week, we learned that the Mount Sinai administration intends to argue that graduate workers like us are not “employees”. We wanted to relay some of their specific arguments and share why this legal challenge matters for us and for graduate student workers everywhere.
Sinai claims that student workers are not “employees” and therefore should be denied the right to vote on unionization and engage in collective bargaining, arguing against existing precedent — set by our graduate worker colleagues at Columbia in 2016 — which re-established the right of graduate researchers and teaching assistants to form unions. In case the NLRB rejects their first argument, Sinai further contends that several groups should still be excluded from our proposed unit, including first-year graduate students, those on external fellowship or grants, and those in any instructional position, like teaching assistants. These efforts to exclude certain students workers from our bargaining unit are a deliberate attempt to reduce our collective power as a union. To get more involved in building our union, fill out this form. You can read Sinai’s full statement of position here.
As always, please reach out if you would like to discuss anything or have questions.
Solidarity forever,
Zach Zeisler
Neuroscience
SSW Organizing Committee Member
This past weekend at the Queer Liberation March, we joined a contingent of workers including Sinai Postdocs and academic workers from New York University, Columbia University, The New School, and more!
