On Monday, August 31st, our elected bargaining committee met with the Mount Sinai administration for our tenth bargaining session. We were looking forward to receiving counter proposals from Sinai that would help address the main issues postdocs have been facing. However, Sinai only came to the table with minor changes to two articles - Compensation and Leaves of Absence.
The Compensation article continues to be below the status quo, ignoring our proposed increases. Sinai also handed us back the Childcare article without any changes from our original contract language, refusing to contribute to the Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account for parents. Despite the counters we had provided in the previous session for the Housing and Relocation Assistance articles, Sinai did not come back with anything to address them. Instead, they stated they might not have any more movement in these areas.
When we asked why they have not moved more on compensation, Sinai stated they don’t see a need to increase the salary, which they already view as generous, and would rather put resources elsewhere. When we pressed on where else they would like to put resources, they instead claimed they prefer to keep wages "strong", despite proposing anniversary raises below the status quo and compensation that doesn't keep up with the past three years of inflation.
Similarly, when asked why they do not want to provide more support for parents, Sinai stated they believe they already offer generous time off for parents and that they "don't subsidize childcare," but instead prefer to provide for families through compensation. Sinai also continues to insist the Emergency Support Fund should no longer exist and again stated they believe housing is already more than adequate despite the rising housing cost in NYC.
It is essential that we keep up the pressure on Sinai for the fair contract we deserve. The next bargaining session will take place on Monday, September 14, 2026, from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM. You can RSVP to join here!
You can find the full history of exchanged proposals in our public bargaining tracker here, and find summaries below for this session:
Compensation: Instead of increasing minimums for newly hired postdocs each year of the contract, Sinai has been proposing to freeze the minimums for the duration of the next contract. In this session, Sinai continued to insist on this and only moved the minimum from $74,692 to $75,000. In addition, Sinai repeated they would like a longer five year contract, and increased their proposed anniversary raises from 1.5% to 2% for the third and fourth years of the contract. However, they left the raises at 1.5% for the second and third years of the contract (compared to 3% raises in our current agreement).
Leaves of Absence: Despite our proposals to increase parental leave, Sinai continues to offer no increase. For visa renewal leave, our contract already stated this leave is for “visa and immigration proceedings for themselves [postdocs] or their spouse or children”. Sinai added two words to this definition, stating this leave is for “visa renewal and formal immigration proceedings”, but did not offer any additional visa renewal days. In addition, Sinai added a new section stating that “Mount Sinai will assist Postdoctoral Fellows for visa issuance matters where feasible”.
Childcare: Sinai handed us an unchanged copy of the article from our first contract, with zero contribution to the Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account.
Solidarity,
Bremy Alburquerque, Genetics and Genomics
SPOC-UAW 4100 Bargaining Committee
Mount Sinai Proposals: