Categories: Updates

Updates from yesterday’s bargaining session

Yesterday, graduate workers met with Penn admin for our first bargaining session of the Spring semester. Several graduate workers gave testimony during the session about how Penn’s current policies regarding discrimination and harassment have failed them, highlighting the need for stronger language in our contract to protect and expand the rights of graduate workers at Penn. Furthermore, we made substantial progress on articles like Employment Files and Training and came to a tentative agreement on Health and Safety.

Last session, admin responded to our Prohibition Against Discrimination, Unlawful Harassment, and Abusive Conduct proposal by rejecting the entirety of our 7-page proposal and replacing it with a link to the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity website. Admin said that Penn’s current opaque and unaccountable policies are sufficient to protect graduate employees from discrimination, harassment, and abusive conduct.

Sadly, too many graduate workers know firsthand that this is not the case. In yesterday’s session, four grads from across the University shared their experiences with the shortcomings of Penn’s current policies regarding discrimination and harassment. Sharing the experiences of graduate workers with Penn’s current, inadequate policies powerfully demonstrated why we need real, enforceable protections against harassment, discrimination, and abuse in our union contract.

To summarize, in yesterday’s session:

We presented counters on Protections Against Discrimination and Harassment, and Workspace and Materials.
The University presented counters on Employment Files, Training, and Health and Safety.
We reached a tentative agreement on Health and Safety.
We believe we are very close to tentative agreements on both Employment Files and Training.
You can find all of the our proposals and admin’s responses on the GETUP-UAW Bargaining Tracker linked here.

Yesterday was an encouraging and productive session. This progress is due to our collective action, like the petition graduate workers delivered in December and the consistent pressure from observers in the room. However, we are still waiting on admin’s responses to eight remaining proposals. We need to keep pushing to ensure that Penn responds to our proposals without further delay.

On January 28th at 12:30pm in front of Van Pelt Library, grad workers will rally together to fight for a fair contract. Join your fellow workers to show Penn our strength and rally for a contract that we need to thrive in our positions. RSVP here!

In Solidarity,

The GETUP-UAW Bargaining Committee

Clara Abbott

Emily Aunins

Peter Bailer

Oishi Bardhan

Kal Brown

Eli Fastow

Adina Goldstein

Sam Herrmann

Austin King

Sam Layding