On Friday, our elected bargaining committee met with the administration from Johns Hopkins for the fourth time. The session had a late start, but we had a clarifying discussion about previously passed articles. We learned more about the administration’s approach to bargaining by the heavily edited counterproposals they passed to us and their answers to our questions about what protections they think postdocs deserve. Three postdocs served as observers to witness the session, and we encourage any other interested postdocs to join future bargaining sessions (RSVP here).
We started the session by addressing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that the administration sent us to outline rules around observers, and while we agreed on many of the rules in principle, we pushed back on a cap on the number of observers and deferred our final decision. We then asked some clarifying questions about JHU’s counter-proposals. The administration said that they prefer using the language “will” as opposed to “shall” for grammatical reasons, and they wish to include language that reinforces but does not meaningfully change enforcement of severability (when articles may conflict with law and require re-opening of the contract).
The administration presented us with several counter-proposals (check them in our Bargaining Tracker). They essentially disregarded our proposals and provided new ones without track changes. Included were: Job Posting, Employee Resources, and Grievance and Arbitration. The administration’s counter to Job Posting, in response to our 4-section proposal, was reduced to one sentence. They proposed an Employee Resources article that combined our proposals for Travel, Employee Records, and Workspace and Material into one single page. Among other changes, they want to require pre-approval for budget spending, for which purchase cards are being phased out. Grievance and Arbitration was heavily edited to allow the University to file grievances against postdocs, significantly lengthens timelines, and to remove harassment and discrimination from the scope which would lower the standard for all unionized postdocs, among other issues. We are considering these counters and drafting our own.
We ended the session by asking questions about their previous counter for Discipline and Discharge. The administration emphasized that, in their eyes, postdocs are transient positions that do not warrant automatic renewal. They also argued for unpaid suspensions to investigate at their sole discretion. Finally, they asserted that postdocs have only one relationship with JHU as employees, not students, and therefore are not granted the same internal appeals process. We will continue to work on our counter for this article.
Going forward, we agreed that Fridays 11am-2pm every other week would work for all parties. We will continue to update postdocs on the time and location of upcoming bargaining sessions, and we encourage anyone interested in being an observer to sign up here.
In solidarity,
Amanda Shaver, Biology
Ben Seicol, Otolaryngology/ Head & Neck Surgery
Cat LaCourse, Pediatrics
Jaime Eugenin von Bernhardi, Neuroscience
Mitch Cram, University Writing Program
Saakshi Dulani, Physics & Astronomy, Philosophy
Tianyu Cao, Pathology
PRO-UAW Bargaining Committee