A Perspective from the Frontlines: The same nurses fighting COVID are fighting again for equal pay at Columbia University
By Jessica Schwartz, April Ancheta, Kodiak Soled, Ani Bilazarian, Eleanor Turi, Katherine Zheng, Vaneh Hovsepian and Sarah Leonard
For the past year, nurses have been on the frontlines fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, often sacrificing their own physical and mental health for their patients and communities. This effort has received public praise, from murals painted on city buildings portraying nurses with superhero capes, to nightly news broadcasts that have honored and celebrated nurses for their courage, bravery, and commitment. Although the U.S. has now largely provided nurses with appropriate health and safety protections (including providing adequate amounts of proper personal protective equipment [PPE], and in some cases, providing nurses with additional compensation), nurses had to fight for these protections and additional pay. We could not just allow public praise to be the ultimate reward for our vital efforts in combating this pandemic.
At Columbia University, Nursing PhD students (i.e., nursing researchers) are engaged in a second fight — this time, for equal pay. PhD students at the Columbia University School of Nursing are paid significantly less than PhD students in every single other department at the University. Columbia University praises nurses who have put themselves at risk during this pandemic and applaud the work of their Nursing PhD students who helped the school achieve #4 ranking in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. Yet, our compensation remains lower than that of every other Columbia University PhD student worker.
Nursing research is vital to advancements in public health, health equity, patient safety and countless other multidisciplinary pursuits. Nursing PhDs have driven improvements in hand hygiene, understanding traumatic brain injury, and reducing falls and declines in nursing homes through the application of intelligent sensors. These are just a few of the many examples of the important contributions to society Nursing PhDs have made. Nursing PhDs are also more likely to identify as female, something they have in common with other departments, such as social work and public health, that have also historically lacked pay parity at Columbia.
Because of this low pay and pay disparity, most Nursing PhD students also work clinically to make ends meet in New York City (NYC). Our yearly stipend is currently set at the NIH minimum $25,320 (for 2021). Although this may be an acceptable income in other areas of the country, this is almost 40% LESS than the living wage for NYC (~$41,000). We work clinically while balancing our academic work, taking courses to develop content expertise, conducting our own research, fulfilling responsibilities as teaching assistants (TAs) , and working as research assistants for our PI’s research grants. Further, other biomedical PhD researchers at Columbia who receive funding from external grants, including the NIH, also receive a top-off (i.e., extra pay beyond what the NIH funds), with the total amounting to $41,500 — nearly 40% more than Nursing PhDs; this is even for those who are awarded the same prestigious fellowships. Other biomedical PhD researchers continue to negotiate for increases; meanwhile, nursing continues to stay stagnant at this NIH minimum rate.
The Graduate Workers of Columbia, (GWC-UAW Local 2110), is currently in negotiations with the University for the first contract. Part of that contract involves establishing pay parity for all departments across the University, bringing Nursing PhD compensation up to the level of all other departments — essentially raising the minimum stipend to a living wage and eliminating a gender pay gap that the University continues to perpetuate. The GWC called a strike on March 15 because of the University’s intransigence. They still have not agreed to pay student workers for meaningful wage increases, despite Columbia’s endowment of $11 billion and President Lee Bollinger’s salary at $4.6 million per year. In fact, Lee Bollinger did not take a pay cut during the pandemic like President Larry Bacow at Harvard did. Columbia has yet to agree to a number of other articles crucial for GWC members including neutral arbitration for discrimination and sexual harassment.
Despite negotiations, Columbia’s administrators have not officially agreed to bring Nursing PhDs to pay parity. In fact, they have consistently worked to undermine Nursing participation in the union by claiming nurses do not qualify due to receiving external fellowships. However, the National Labor Relations Board ruled in their 2016 Columbia Decision that union members are students who do teaching or research work regardless of their funding source. Therefore, Nursing PhDs are part of the union. Moreover, even though it is in their best interest for their PhD students to make a living wage, the School of Nursing leadership has further discouraged union membership and participation by echoing the University’s sentiments that Nursing PhDs don’t qualify.
If this was not enough, without a fair contract, Nursing PhDs who receive their own external dissertation funding, for which they are strongly encouraged to apply (again, to increase the NIH funding bottom line), end up suffering because the funding does not cover the cost of tuition at Columbia. Depending on timing, many of us have to take on extra TA work to cover the cost, adding burden to our workload in our final years of graduate school. A fair contract would guarantee that Nursing PhDs are paid enough to cover the cost of living modestly in NYC as we pursue our degree, just as every other PhD student at Columbia.
Just among those of us signed here, we have worked hundreds of hours in the emergency department, on the hospital floors, and at vaccination clinics, while conducting essential research around health equity; health service utilization; health care technology and more, and keeping the University functioning by teaching courses. A lack of living wage and pay parity discourages nurses from pursuing a PhD, though it is clear that nurses and Nursing PhDs are essential to a healthy and thriving society. We call on Columbia University to pay Nursing PhDs a living wage with parity to other PhD students by agreeing to GWC demands for a fair contract.
