🎉 ⭐ On Tuesday, December 19th, BUGWU met BU at the table for our ninth bargaining session for a strong contract ⭐🎉 

Proposal Summaries:

We presented our International Worker Rights, Intellectual Property, and Paid Time Off articles. In line with previous bargaining sessions, The BU administration responded by saying that they will have lots of questions for us. Again, when these promised questions will be brought to the table remains unclear. 

1. International Worker Rights: This proposal protects international graduate student workers by ensuring a safe, inclusive, and equitable environment. This includes prohibiting the university from disclosing any Graduate Worker’s immigration information or personal identifiable information (PII) to any government entity except as required by law. Our article also asks for immigration assistance, including guidance and timelines from The International Students and Scholars Office (ISSO). We also ask for protections for graduate workers who cannot work in the United States due to situations outside of their control, and additional English language support.  
2. Intellectual Property: This proposal would expand the intellectual property rights of graduate students to give workers more control over what happens to the intellectual property they produce. This includes getting fair credit for the work we do, the ability to publish in open source and open access mediums when possible, the right of first refusal in licensing arrangements, and a seat on the University’s Intellectual Property committee. 
3. Paid Time Off: This proposal codifies our right and freedom to heal, recover, grieve mourn, and care for ourselves without worry of losing pay or benefits

In addition to our articles, we also let Boston University know that we remain committed to recognizing the teaching, research, and labor of misclassified non service graduate workers. Two graduate workers who are considered “non service” while teaching for the university spoke directly to administrators about the work they do. Despite their testimony, BU stands by their belief that their labor does not make them workers for the university and tried to move away from the topic. We clearly stated our disagreement and informed them that resolving this issue is a high priority for us; we can’t ask people to vote to approve a contract without knowing if they will receive its benefits. 

We also requested 2 bargaining dates per month for the Spring semester. This is driven by the fact that BU has failed to present the promised questions they have for our proposals and continues to deliver counter proposals at an incredibly slow pace. Unfortunately, BU responded to our request with tentative bargaining dates at a cadence of once per month. We remain steadfast in our commitment to a strong, fair, and timely contract. BU administration has often cited bargaining as part of their job, but for us it’s so much more. Every day BU delays and stalls, we continue to bear the brunt of poor and exploitative working conditions. 

BU's Attempt to Invalidate BUGWU's Public Health Proposal

BU administration presented two counterproposals, both of which are categorical rejections of the union’s stated positions on these issues: 

• The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Consent Article:

This article requires grad workers to individually consent to the release of non-directory information regulated by FERPA that is essential for contract negotiation. The union has previously stated that based on the experiences of other grad unions, such a waiver system will severely impede our ability to negotiate and enforce the contract, and suggested an opt-out system instead. It is clear that management has no interest in ceding any ground on this issue. 

• Professional Rights Article:

Management has rejected our standard proposal on Academic Freedom, which is already in place for the unionized non-tenured faculty at BU (e.g., adjuncts, salaried lecturers). Our proposal is intended to guarantee our agency in conducting teaching and research activities, and to speak and write as individuals without censorship or discipline from the university. Instead, management insists that our direct supervisor should be the sole arbiter of the appropriateness of our research and teaching. Management’s article thus rejects our right to academic freedom, and codifies the managerial right to censor all grad workers professionally.

BUGWU Semester Wrap Up!

We’ve now met with the administration for nine bargaining sessions and introduced twenty three proposals. Check out our Semester Wrap Up video for a summary of everything that’s happened!

⭐ = Updates

🎉 = Victory

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