BC Election FAQs
The Bargaining Committee (BC) is a group of elected graduate workers who will serve as official
representatives of TRU-UE during collective bargaining with the university. The BC will be
responsible for drafting contract proposals that address graduate workers’ most pressing
concerns and negotiating contract details with the university. Throughout this process, the BC
will be working closely with TRU-UE’s Contract Action Team, who will be keeping the thousands
of grad workers across the university engaged in the process of setting bargaining priorities and
mobilized to win improvements to our working conditions!
Q: Who will be on the Bargaining Committee?
A: Bargaining Committee (BC) members will be grad workers from our union! Elections will be
held in each major PhD granting division at JHU, to fill a fixed number of seats on the BC:
● 4 seats will be filled from the School of Nursing and the School of Public Health, along
with the engineering branch of Environmental Health and Engineering.
● 4 seats will be filled from the School of Education, the School of Advanced International
Studies, and the Social Science and Humanities departments within the School of Arts
and Sciences. History of Medicine will vote with this block.
● 4 seats will be filled from Natural Science departments within the School of Arts and
Sciences.
● 5 seats will be filled from the School of Engineering.
● 5 seats will be filled from the School of Medicine.
Q: How will members of the Bargaining Committee be selected?
A: For each division, Bargaining Committee (BC) members will be selected through an election
conducted virtually using an online voting platform. Graduate workers will vote for a fixed
number of BC members from their division. Ranked choice voting will be used to improve the
fairness of the election and help ensure that the composition of the BC faithfully represents
voter preferences. For more information about the specifics of the ranked choice voting method
used in the BC election, see the voting platform documentation.
Q: Who is eligible to run?
A: Any union member is eligible to run as long as they take appropriate steps to avoid conflicts
of interest. Namely, anyone with a position in graduate student government or other
university-sponsored body that meets with members of the JHU administration on a regular
basis must resign their position if elected to the Bargaining Committee. For more details and the
rationale behind this rule, check out the explanation here. Nominations opened on February 21, and
close at midnight on February 28.
Use the TRU-UE BC Candidate Nomination form to nominate
yourself or someone else.
Q: Who is eligible to vote?
A: Any union member can vote in the Bargaining Committee election for their division. If you’re
enrolled in a PhD program at JHU and haven’t already officially joined TRU-UE by signing a
union card, you can sign your union card electronically here!
Q: How can I vote?
A: The Bargaining Committee election will be conducted online via a secure voting platform. If
you’ve signed a union card, you will receive an email on Friday March 3rd linking to the digital
ballot for your division. Note that this email will come to your JHU email account directly from
OpaVote, and not from TRU, so make sure to check your spam filters if you don’t see it!
Q: When can I vote?
A: Voting will open on Friday March 3rd and run until midnight on Wednesday March 8th. You’ll
receive your digital ballot directly to your JHU email account if you’ve signed a union card.
Q: Are my votes anonymous?
A: Yes, your vote will be anonymous. Members of the TRU-UE Election Committee are setting
up the logistics of the election, and will be able to see whether or not individual members have
voted, but not who they voted for.
Q: Who is setting up the logistics of the BC election?
A: The TRU-UE Election Committee was formed to establish and run the logistics of the
election, and will dissolve once the election is concluded. The Election Committee is part of the
TRU-UE’s Coordinating Committee, and consists exclusively of grad organizers who will not
themselves be running for the Bargaining Committee.