The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/cgsu/)
The six demands in the petition included an external review of Cornell Counseling and Psychological Services, gym membership reimbursement, improvement of the therapy referral process and others.
Cornell Graduate Students Union discusses new “winnable,” campaign and mental health during their Wednesday afternoon meeting, the first of the semester.
The result means CGSU will not be able to file another unionization election petition for a year — until May 25, 2019.
CGSU members reflected that while the arbitrator found that Cornell violated the National Labor Relations Act, the results of the March 2017 election will be certified as a loss for the union.
The arbitrator found that the email sent on March 26, 2017, by Senior Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Barbara Knuth contained a statement that violated the NLRA, according to the arbitrator’s award document.
A controversial email sent by an administrator to graduate students during the March 2017 union recognition election will be considered as evidence during the arbitration process to decide whether the University violated the election agreement.
Cornell Graduate Students United will request to file objections regarding the University’s conduct in its March 2017 union recognition election on Friday.
“[The offered settlements] frankly didn’t have many of the features we would have liked to protect us from the University breaking our agreements like they did during the last campaign,” said Jaron Kent-Dobias grad, CGSU communications and outreach.
With negotiations at a “standstill,” CGSU is bringing the possibility for a re-election to its membership with a referendum vote.
To the editor:
The following letter was sent to Cornell President Martha Pollack on September 6, 2017:
Dear President Pollack:
Labor Day provides an important moment to reflect on the rights of employees, including on the Cornell campus. As you know, in March 2017, Cornell graduate employees voted on whether to be represented by the Cornell Graduate Students United in collective bargaining with Cornell. The election results were close, with 856 votes for union representation, 919 votes against union representation and 81 ballots not yet counted due to questions about voter eligibility. At this point, therefore, the final outcome of that election remains uncertain. According to the Cornell Graduate School, it is expected that a final tally would maintain the majority “no” vote.