February 17 bargaining update

February 17, 2023

MIT’s bargaining team met with the GSU’s bargaining team for a day-long bargaining session on Friday, February 17. The majority of the session focused on non-economic proposals, in particular the union’s position on grievance procedures for discrimination and harassment.

• The GSU presented testimonies from graduate student leaders who shared concerns about how MIT’s current discrimination and harassment procedures work. In an earlier bargaining session, MIT’s representatives had presented a summary of steps the Institute has taken in recent years, working directly with students, to strengthen its discrimination and harassment policies and programs; a summary of those improvements can be found here.
• The perspectives the students shared revealed areas for further exploration and discussion at the bargaining table, with both sides aiming to find common ground on this critical and complex topic in subsequent bargaining sessions.
• The GSU put forth its first economic proposal, related to leave-of-absence policies. The union shared more than a dozen different types of leave categories that it wants MIT to offer to bargaining unit members, some without any need for approval by an individual’s supervisor.
• The MIT bargaining team again asked to receive all of the GSU’s economic proposals, so that decisions can be made in light of the entire set of proposals from the union.

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Monday, February 27, and several more are set for March. The GSU has requested additional sessions in April, and MIT is working to schedule those quickly. MIT looks forward to an ongoing productive dialogue with the GSU.