CGPU-UAW Bargaining Team Election:
Online Voting FAQ

To determine the members of the bargaining team, CGPU-UAW will hold two elections, one for graduate student workers (GSWs) and one for postdocs (PDs). 

The GSW election will be from Thursday April 4th at 9:00 am PST until Friday April 5th at 11:59 PM PST. The 11 candidates who receive the greatest number of votes will be elected to the bargaining team. More details about the GSW election process can be found here.

The PD election will be Thursday April 11th at 9:00 am PST until Friday April 12th at 11:59 PM PST, one week after the GSW election. More details about the PD election can be found here.

With collective bargaining, we set our priorities and our agenda—and we elect fellow peers as representatives to negotiate on equal footing with Caltech administrators for improvements such as salary increases, career development resources, parental leave, healthcare, protections from harassment and discrimination, and much more. Ultimately, any tentative agreement that is reached must be ratified by a democratic vote of the entire union.

Without a union, Caltech retains unilateral power to change conditions or decide whether to voluntarily make improvements. For example, despite the GSC’s yearly effort to demonstrate the need for our salary adjustments to keep up with the high cost of living in California, Caltech administration repeatedly has decided unilaterally, and rather arbitrarily, to not do so.

Forming a union not only gives us a say in our day-to-day working lives, but also strengthens our voice in an increasingly difficult political environment. In fact, nearly 50,000 academic employees in the UC system are unionized, and were key in reversing the Trump administration’s proposed tax on graduate student fee remissions and in fighting the Trump travel bans. As a part of a nationwide movement to unionize higher-ed, we are collectively improving conditions across the board, not just here at Caltech.

An invitation to a secret and secure ballot will be sent to voters from a secure online voting platform called Simply Voting (vote@simplyvoting.com) at 9:00 am on Thursday April 4th for Graduate Student Workers and 9:00 am on Thursday April 11th for Postdocs. The email will contain a link to the voting website and a log-in specific to your email. Do not forward email to anyone else. 

If you cannot find your ballot, you may request one.

A list of candidates along with their candidate statements will be sent to all voters on March 28th for GSWs and on April 2nd for Postdocs.

After the close of the election, vote tallies will be distributed by approximately 9:00 am on Monday April 8th for Graduate Student Workers, and 9:00 am Monday April 15th for Postdocs.

All Graduate Student Workers and Postdocs at Caltech are eligible to vote in their respective elections.

Graduate Student Workers and Postdocs will receive a ballot at ONE of the email addresses subscribed to receive CGPU-UAW emails. Please note, if you have unsubscribed from CGPU-UAW emails, you must request a ballot. We cannot do this automatically due to service agreements and federal and state anti-spam laws.

Fill out this Google form. The Elections Team will verify your identity and ensure that you are added to the list of ballot recipients. You may fill this form out before or during the election (if during the election, do so before 5PM PST on the final day of the election.)

The deadline to request a ballot for the election is April 5th at 5:00 pm PST for Graduate Student workers and April 12th at 5:00 pm PST for Postdocs.

Send an email to organize@cgpu.org.

Email organize@cgpu.org with questions. You can request a ballot up until April 5th at 5:00 pm PST for Graduate Student workers and April 12th at 5:00 pm PST for Postdocs, using this Google form. 

The Elections Support Team is not permitted to provide any advice on who to vote for and will only assist in the logistics of ensuring Graduate Student Workers’ and Postdocs’ access to vote.

Issues with ballots will be resolved in the following order: 1.Voters who write in with an issue receiving their ballot or fill out the ballot request form. 2. Voters to whom the voting platform indicates ballots were not delivered due to incorrect, missing or bounced email addresses. The Elections Support team will make every effort to resolve all known ballot issues.

Simply Voting is a web-based online voting system that will allow CGPU-UAW to run an accessible and secure election.

You can view Simply Voting’s security and reliability measures here. This platform has also been used for many other Graduate Student Worker and Postdoc union elections at other peer institutions.

Yes. The administrative side of the election interface shows who is voting but does not reveal

how individuals vote.

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