Dear TRENDS Diary,
As a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Colorado-Boulder, and a member of the CU employee union, it’s difficult trying to figure out how to help people in the most effective way possible.
The Union right now is mostly graduate workers, because it started as the graduate student union, but we’ve been branching out and now have teaching faculty and members of staff.
We have several working groups: the COVID working group, the antiracism working group, and an international working goup. When the university shut down in March, we began trying to craft a response to various university policies and trying to figure out a strategy for how to best use our membership and our power to respond.
We have a list of demands, which involve things like hazard pay for any worker who is required to be on campus. We said that anyone who was able to do their job off campus was to be allowed to do so, without any reduction in compensation. We demanded an increase in on-campus testing for faculty and staff. We got that, which is good.
Now we’re trying to push the university to go remote, draft a strategy for spring and address the need for more mental health support. We are also building our membership and lines of communication that will hopefully result in trusting relationships and a better understanding of the issues.
Even though the administration has made decisions with which I as an individual and the larger union strongly disagree, every person that I’ve seen working at CU has been working so hard. That’s one thing that I’ve been very impressed by. The staff, faculty, and student workers have been so dedicated to making things as safe as they can be and that’s been really admirable. I have nothing but praise and admiration for them all.
– Emma Cating-Subramanian, as told to Cindy Torres
