Becca Roskill

Earlier this semester, we wrote both an op-ed about why undergraduates should support the strike authorization vote and a petition in support of the graduate workers, which was signed by 250 students. Needless to say, a lot has changed since then. Although the strike authorization vote was a resounding success with 96 percent of the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers voting yes to authorize a strike in early March, the strike’s momentum has been severely disrupted by the escalation of a global pandemic that has thrown all of our lives into crisis.

With the launch of a strike authorization vote earlier this week, undergraduate students are witnessing the revival of the decades-long conversation around graduate workers’ rights at Columbia. However, for members of the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers bargaining committee, its allies, and the graduate worker population at large, this struggle has not stopped as the GWC-UAW has waited out the “no-strike” period mandated by the 2018 bargaining framework.