Columbia Doesn't Care About Your Labor Rights. You Should Strike About It.
By: Steven Lazickas
I’ll be honest. I rewrote this a couple times because I wanted to get it right.
Because this is about rights. It’s about your rights. If you are a Teaching Assistant, Reader, or Research Assistant, I’m talking to you. And I’m asking you to strike.
Thursday, February 25 marked the two year anniversary of bargaining between Columbia University and the Graduate Workers of Columbia. The Graduate Workers of Columbia are the labor union for academic student-workers on Columbia’s campus.
Even if you haven’t heard of us, we’ve been fighting for you.
It’s been a long fight. At first, Columbia refused to recognize the union at all. So we took them to court. And won. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the highest labor authority in the United States, forced Columbia University to bargain with us. Columbia made history: in 2016, the Columbia University decision realized the right of graduate worker unions at private universities to organize. It is worth noting that the NLRB recognized master’s students as members of our union.
And still, Columbia refused to sit down at the table for nearly two years. Columbia only followed the law after we went on strike in April 2018 and over 1,500 graduate workers joined the picket line. It was a success. We began bargaining for our first contract on February 25, 2019.
Two years ago, the Graduate Workers of Columbia and Columbia University sat down to hash out a contract that will bind the university to treat its workers with dignity and respect. In the time that we have been bargaining for our contract, graduate workers at 7 other private universities—American, Brandeis, Brown, Georgetown, Harvard, Tufts, and the New School—have successfully negotiated theirs.
While we’ve been bargaining, Columbia has repeatedly attempted to exclude master’s student-workers like SIPA’s TAs, readers, or research assistants from contract benefits. They want to ignore the law and deprive master’s workers like you and me from receiving the same protections as our PhD counterparts, despite the fact that we do much of the same work.
Columbia thinks you do not deserve these protections. The Graduate Workers of Columbia (and the federal government) think you do.
The contract protections Columbia seeks to exclude master’s students from include: access to neutral grievance and arbitration in cases of harassment and abuse, better health benefits, and protection against pay cuts. You can find out more here.
Speaking of pay cuts, SIPA cut student-worker’s pay by 40% in 2018. SIPA’s workers lost thousands of dollars of income. If master’s students are excluded from the contract, there’s nothing preventing SIPA from cutting our pay again. Without a contract protecting us, all we have left is SIPA’s word. I’d rather have the contract.
Last spring, GWC gave its Bargaining Committee the authority to call a strike with the support of 96% of voting members. Some of those votes came from SIPA student-workers. All of those votes were in support of our commitment to including master’s workers in the contract.
On February 25, 2021, GWC set a deadline: give us a contract we can accept or on March 15, we go on strike.
I’m asking my fellow SIPA workers to join this strike.
You deserve the protection of a contract. The TAs, Readers, and Research Assistants who come after us deserve the protections of a contract. Columbia won’t give it to us, we’ll have to make them. We do that by striking.
I understand you might be apprehensive about striking, that’s valid. Some of you have expressed your concerns already. I hope to address them adequately below.
Can I get fired for striking?
No. Striking is a protected action and one of your rights. It’s against the law for an employer to fire or otherwise retaliate against striking employees. If your supervisor threatens to punish you for striking, they are breaking the law.
What if they don’t pay me? I need the money from this job.
Columbia (and SIPA) are notoriously disorganized. Often, they can’t even pay their workers on time when they aren’t striking. It’s very likely they lack the logistical ability to withhold your pay. During the previous strike, there were no reported instances of graduate workers losing pay while striking.
In the unlikely event your pay is docked, striking workers have access to a United Auto Workers strike fund that pays up to $275 a week. The Graduate Workers of Columbia will also be fundraising additional funds for those who need it.
What about my students? I don’t want to let them down.
You can talk to your students about the strike and why you’re doing it. You can tell them that you’re actually striking for them more than you are for yourself. Next year’s Teaching Assistants, Readers, and Research Assistants will be the ones to benefit from the strike and subsequent inclusion in the contract. Your students will be alright while you strike and they’ll be even better off when you’ve won them the protection of a contract.
What about my professor? I don’t want to ruin our relationship.
You can also talk to your professor about the strike. Now that we’ve given a deadline, it’s not going to be a surprise. Here are some talking points to help you discuss the strike with faculty. It’s likely they support the strike (but may not explicitly tell you so).
If you’re a professor reading this, please know that your student-workers are not striking to harm you. We are striking to improve Columbia for future student-workers. If you are sympathetic to our cause or just don’t want us to strike on March 15, then please advocate on the strikers’ behalf to Dean Janow and other Columbia administrators.
Dean Janow, if you’re reading this we ask you to please do the right thing: stand up for your students’ rights and ask Columbia to adhere to the NLRB decision and include master’s students in the contract and bargain with us in good faith.
I’m an international student, I don’t want this to affect my visa.
As I mentioned above, it is illegal to retaliate against striking workers. This includes threatening visa status. And on the topic of visas: F-1 or J-1 visas are tied to your student status and your actions as a worker cannot affect them. So you’re welcome to join the strike, where you’ll meet the thousands of other international students who make up about half of the Graduate Workers of Columbia!
If you’re interested in joining the union or striking, you can fill out the hyper linked forms. If you would like more information, I would be more than happy to speak to you;my email is below.
Steven Lazickas (MPA, HRHP ‘21) is the former Editor-At-Large of The Morningside Post and served as SIPASA’s Academic Affairs Chair for the year 2020. He is currently a member of the Graduate Workers of Columbia Bargaining Committee. You can email him at sal2235@columbia.edu.