An Agreement on Ground Rules: What to Expect in Continued Bargaining with SENS-UAW Local 7902, Academic Student Workers
A Message from Sonya Williams, Vice President for Human Resources
As we shared last week, the university and SENS-UAW Local 7902, the union representing our Academic Student Workers, have reached agreement on ground rules for our upcoming bargaining sessions.
Ground rules are an important foundation of any bargaining process and help ensure it is fair and productive and that all parties know what to expect and what’s expected of them. You can read the entire agreement here, but we want our community to understand what both parties have agreed to:
We will bargain all non-economic issues first.
Both parties agreed that the most effective way to move forward with bargaining is to discuss and attempt to reach tentative agreement on all non-economic issues (meaning those without a financial impact) before moving to the economic issues.
This approach is typical in labor negotiations and allows for more productive dialogue and bargaining.
There will be a Zoom link for community viewing.
The university and union bargaining committee members will attend sessions in person, with the broader community—anyone with an active New School email address—able to observe via Zoom. The university and the union will rotate responsibility for creating a Zoom link. The link for the session taking place on Friday, November 10 will be posted on the university’s Union Negotiations page that morning.
‌The sessions will not be recorded or made publicly accessible, out of concerns raised by the union that international students involved in bargaining might face backlash from their home countries for participation in labor activity.
To ensure productive dialogue during the limited time we have, it was agreed that only bargaining committee members will speak during the sessions, observers will remain muted, and the Zoom chat feature will be closed.
Those who intend to observe bargaining sessions are expected to abide by this agreement between the university and the union bargaining committee.
Both parties will publish our proposals on our respective websites within 48 hours of a session.
This is important for transparency and something the university has requested of the union from the outset. The university will post its proposals on our Union Negotiations page, and the union will post proposals on its website.
We are pleased to have these ground rules in place and look forward to progressing discussions with SENS-UAW Local 7902.