Our elected Bargaining Committee had our ninth bargaining session with the JHU admin yesterday, and we were joined by six observers. We passed the JHU admin seven counterproposals, and they gave us six counterproposals in total. We are close to a tentative agreement (TA) on two articles, Job Posting and Workspace and Materials, and both sides explained our rationale for changes made to the article proposals. Most notably, the JHU admin gave us a very different version of International Employee Rights than our initial proposal, and they removed reimbursement for visa expenses and rejected the entire premise of an OIS timeline. While we anticipate being able to reach tentative agreements on more proposals soon, the JHU admin continues to make it clear that we’re far apart on key issues that we know we all are looking to improve in our first contract. You can see all of the counter-proposals for yourself in our Bargaining Tracker.
To begin the session, we presented the JHU admin with seven counterproposals: Non-Discrimination, Harassment, and No Retaliation; Inclusive Work Environment; Health and Safety; Public Safety; Workspace and Materials; Job Posting; and Discipline and Discharge. We incorporated JHU’s current Interactive Policy for disability accommodations into our Inclusive Work Environment counter, with some changes that better define timelines by which accommodation requests are to be fulfilled, and ensure that postdocs are prioritized in the accommodation approval process. In Health and Safety, we maintained that we expect transparency and accountability for OSHA inspections and that if a lab must move due to safety concerns, JHU will bear the cost of said move, and not the lab.
We re-introduced our Public Safety article, as our first proposal was rejected outright by the JHU admin. This revised proposal moved parking and transportation protocols from this article to negotiate later in economic bargaining, maintained that de-escalatory procedures be followed for postdocs experiencing mental health crises rather than involving law enforcement, and retained our right to publicly protest and participate in other legally protected activities.
We then presented our counterproposals for Workspace and Materials and Job Posting, both of which only warranted mild revisions. In Workspace and Materials, we separated Employee Records and Travel back to their own articles, and formally withdrew our Travel proposal to be negotiated in economic bargaining. We added language that JHU must make a good faith effort to remedy delays in access. In Job Posting, we maintained that potential for reappointment continues to be included in postdoc job postings. Later in the session after our caucus, the JHU admin brought counterproposals to both of these articles, and we are considering their suggested revisions and anticipate TAs soon.
Our last counterproposal was Discipline and Discharge. We accepted some of the JHU admin’s suggestions after questioning them on their rationale at our previous session, but we maintained that denial of reappointment based on misconduct or performance should be subject to the just-cause standard, and that the purpose of discipline is to prevent escalation. We also made it clear that we will not accept anything less than backpay for improper discipline or discharge, and maintained that postdocs must receive written warning before discharge for poor performance. We also rejected their proposed language around interim measures, as we found it too vague. We maintained that suspensions be paid and that visa status for international postdocs be preserved until appeals and grievance processes have been exhausted.
After presenting our counterproposals, we then formally rejected the JHU admin’s Layoff proposal, and we withdrew our Reinstatement of Grievances proposal, which is standard in other industries with unionized workforces in the UAW, but was rejected by the JHU admin.
In return, the JHU admin brought us four counterproposals: Bargaining Unit Information; Union Rights; New Employee Orientation; and International Employee Rights. JHU admin maintained their stance in Bargaining Unit Information that they do not want to give us information on gender identity and visa status of our bargaining unit members, citing privacy concerns, and they proposed giving us updated information on a monthly basis rather than our proposal of each pay period. In Union Rights, the JHU admin pushed to limit our access to meeting spaces on campus, and they want to require that postdocs serving as Union stewards provide advanced notice to their supervisor, which could discourage someone from becoming a steward. In their counterproposal for New Employee Orientation, the JHU admin struck most of our language and rejected union access to orientations entirely, despite a productive conversation at our last bargaining session in which members of the JHU admin’s team shared examples of successful orientations that are currently implemented.
JHU admin then gave us a “clean” copy of their proposal for International Employee Rights, rather than give us a track changes copy from our proposal, as we have recently agreed to do. The document was unrecognizable, and they did not explain most of the changes they made until we asked questions, including removing reimbursement for visa expenses and a timeline for OIS to process international postdocs. They claimed that it is unreasonable to expect JHU to be responsible for visa-related expenses, despite the fact that these procedures have a much larger financial burden and impact on our international postdocs than the University. JHU admin then claimed that they cannot dictate the pace at which OIS works, and yet there are federal guidelines and laws that need to be followed, and a lack of defined timelines detrimentally impacts our international colleagues’ ability and confidence to work here safely. We are working on our counterproposals for all of their coutner-proposalsnow.
Our next session will be Tuesday, July 7th from 10am-1pm on the Eastern Administrative Campus. We encourage any interested postdocs to RSVP to be an observer for any (or all!) of our sessions. The JHU Shuttle does provide service to the Eastern Administrative Campus, but we can also provide carpooling to any postdocs interested in observing our next session.
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