Last night, after a meeting with hundreds of grad workers, nominations opened for our new 22-member Bargaining Committee (BC): a team of PhD student workers who will take our proposals for a contract to the university administration and directly negotiate for comprehensive improvements to our working conditions.
But winning a strong contract for ALL grad workers is going to take thousands of grads across JHU to be engaged in the process and putting pressure on university leaders to agree to our demands. That’s why our Bargaining Committee will work in conjunction with the Contract Action Team (CAT), a group of hundreds of grad organizers who will be talking to coworkers, keeping them updated about the process, and mobilizing our union to action.
Ready to join the CAT? You can sign up here! And if you are interested in nominating yourself or a coworker for the BC you can do that here. Nominations will be open until next Tuesday Feb 28.
Here are the key dates in our Bargaining Committee election:
- BC nominations are open from Feb 21 to Feb 28
- Division-level meetings to learn more and meet the candidates will be on Mar 1 and 2
- Electronic voting opens Mar 3 and closes at 11:59 pm on Mar 8
Questions about how this election will work? Check out the BC election FAQs here! If you missed last night’s meeting but want a detailed recap, take a look at this write up. And be on the look-out for our future office hour sessions, where you can talk one-on-one with an organizer more in-depth.
Note that nominations for and voting in the Bargaining Committee election will be open to any union member, so make sure you sign your union card to officially join TRU-UE if you haven’t already.
We are incredibly excited to take this next step as we continue to build a better Hopkins together!