Tell Fordham: It's Time for a Fair First Contract

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Tell Fordham: It's Time for a Fair First Contract

President Tania Tetlow and members of Fordham's Board of Trustees

In April 2022, 94% of Fordham's grad workers - undergraduate instructors, tutors, clerical and research assistants - voted to form our union, Fordham Graduate Student Workers (FGSW-CWA). For nearly two years since that election, we have been negotiating a first contract with President Tania Tetlow's administration. Overwhelming support for union is motivated by the urgent need for changes in the conditions of graduate work. We need comprehensive healthcare (including vision and dental), greater protections and support for international workers, a fair grievance process for handling graduate workers’ issues on the job, and livable wages.

Fordham’s bargaining team has stalled negotiations, refused their legal obligation to furnish our union with relevant information, and largely countered our proposals with reiterations of existing university policies.

In response to this bad-faith bargaining from Fordham’s administration, we are asking you, members of the Fordham and/or labor community, to stand with us in our efforts to secure a fair contract.

Sponsored by

Fordham Graduate Student Workers (FGSW)

To: President Tania Tetlow and members of Fordham's Board of Trustees
From: [Your Name]

Dear President Tania Tetlow,

We, the undersigned members of the Fordham and labor communities, insist that you bargain a fair first contract for graduate employees. You and your administration have a moral duty to meet graduate workers' reasonable proposals for liveable wages, comprehensive healthcare, childcare support, and the cancellation of pay-to-work fees. These employees are our current or future instructors and tutors and their working conditions are our learning conditions.

A just institution must not only espouse noble ideals; it must hold itself to those ideals and make them a reality. Cura Personalis - care of the whole person - is a bedrock principle of Jesuit teaching. As an institution in the Jesuit tradition, Fordham has an obligation to ensure that its employees are able to afford to live in dignity. This means that no graduate workers should go houseless, graduate workers should not go months without pay for their labor, and they should not be paid tens of thousands of dollars below a living wage in the most expensive city in the country. It is upsetting to know that the administration of an institution in the Jesuit tradition has repeatedly dismissed these clear moral truths at the bargaining table.