GWC-UAW

The cast of characters at bargaining meetings between the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers and the Columbia administration is almost always the same. Ludda Ludwig, a second-year doctoral candidate in earth and environmental science and a bargaining committee representative for GWC, listens patiently to yet another explanation of why Columbia believes that health benefits are outside the scope of a collective bargaining contract. Bernie Plum, the University’s outside counsel tasked with delivering these arguments—he previously represented Disney, the NBA, and the New York Times in their negotiations with employee unions—looks downward toward his screen as he speaks, glasses perched at the end of his nose.

Members of the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers have voted 1,833 to 77 in favor of authorizing a strike in response to what union members have labeled as the University’s unsatisfactory approach to negotiating key bargaining points.

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.

Following almost two decades of back-and-forth for union recognition, Columbia announced its decision to negotiate with the Graduate Workers of Columbia in November 2018. Negotiations started in February 2019, proceeding the creation of a 10-point outline of the conditions for collective bargaining. Notably, the bargaining framework includes an impending deadline: a clause that prevents the union from striking until April 6, 2020.

The University intends to continue bargaining in good faith with the Graduate Workers of Columbia-UAW, despite newly proposed regulations by the National Labor Relations Board that would threaten the federal teaching and research assistants’ right to organize, Interim Provost Ira Katznelson announced in an email on Monday.

The Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers isn’t just a union for graduate students: Undergraduate course assistants, teaching assistants, and graders are also welcome in the bargaining unit. In order to better represent themselves, organizers have recently pushed to get undergrads more involved in the union through town hall organization and direct outreach. Two of my undergrad coworkers were even ready to pledge support and join the organizing committee.

With union elections approaching at the end of the month, the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers are faced with a pressing debate: Barnard undergraduate teaching assistants—many of whom teach courses within Columbia departments—still cannot participate in or vote on union decisions.

On Feb. 6 and 7, members of the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers came together at the ballot box. We elected new members of our Bargaining Committee and voted overwhelmingly in support of two provisions to ensure open and transparent bargaining between our union and the Columbia management. The referenda were a precedent-setting victory for our union members. We sought to learn from previous negative experiences in other academic unions, when key aspects of negotiations with employers took place over the summer while large numbers of workers were not on campus. The practice was especially problematic in the case of the University of California’s graduate workers, whose most recent contract—by most indications a losing and regressive one—was negotiated and voted on during the summer of 2018.

Last month, teaching and research assistants across campus accomplished what few thought we could: Our union began collective bargaining with Columbia University. Like most first contract negotiations, it’s been a slow process. Our Bargaining Committee articulated our goals—which were ratified by our membership with 91 percent of the vote—in our first bargaining session with the University on Feb. 25. Both parties agreed to meet again on March 6, only to have Columbia cancel at the last minute.