Posts tagged Columbia University
A Columbia Student Strike May Foreshadow the End of Unions
March 28, 2026 // Columbia graduate students this month voted to authorize a strike, their second in five years. Their list of demands naturally include things related to pay and working conditions. They are seeking $76,000 a year in pay, about twice the stipend I got as a graduate student (adjusting for inflation) and a more than 50% increase from the current level.
Columbia student worker union authorizes strike amid contract talks, Israel boycott demands
March 17, 2026 // Student Workers of Columbia, a union representing roughly 3,500 graduate and undergraduate student workers at Columbia University, has “overwhelmingly” authorized a strike as part of ongoing contract negotiations with the university, including demands for an institutional boycott of Israel.
SWC-UAW opens strike authorization vote to ‘ramp up’ pressure during bargaining over a new contract with Columbia
February 26, 2026 // Under the last contract, doctoral candidate workers were guaranteed a $43,137 salary. The union has asked for a $76,372 minimum salary in the ongoing negotiations. A student worker strike may disrupt classes, grading, and research operations. The last SWC strike in 2021 disrupted Core Curriculum classes, with instructors canceling midterm exams and removing material from the curriculum. However, the University cut Core class teaching obligations for graduate student workers last year amid negotiations over the new contract. A University official told Spectator that the change gives graduate students more time to complete research and academic requirements.
Cornell Ph.D. Student’s Appeal to NLRB’s Top Prosecutor Urges Agency to End Union Control Over Graduate Students
February 23, 2026 // Russell Burgett, a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University, is asking newly-seated National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Crystal Carey to issue a complaint and ask the NLRB to free graduate students across the country from being forced to fund and associate with union bosses.
Cornell Ph.D. Student’s Appeal to NLRB’s Top Prosecutor Urges Agency to End Union Control Over Graduate Students
February 18, 2026 // Case attacks Obama-era federal ruling that exposed graduate students to union boss power and forced dues
Beyond the assembly line: Auto workers’ labor union emerges as key player in anti-Israel activism
January 26, 2026 // A number of labor unions have seen a rise of antisemitism and anti-Israel activity since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, despite many being historically supportive of Israel, dating back nearly a century, when many American unions donated money to the Histadrut, Israel’s national labor union. Multiple groups have now taken legal action against UAW branches in response to certain campaigns, which some legal experts allege were discriminatory against Israelis and Jews.
‘Cronyism is alive and well’: With hundreds of thousands of dollars misused in their union, University workers allege mismanagement and retaliation
December 10, 2025 // Both Hannigan and Ventura said that the local’s general body has not been informed of the Department of Labor investigation—even after Molina received the subpoena. “There’s no transparency there,” Ventura said. “A lot of members don’t know what actually is going on in the union.” McAllister, a union member, said Molina “failed the membership” by not notifying them of the federal investigation. “He knew about what had transpired and he made no effort to speak about it at the general membership meeting,” McAllister said. “He failed us as a leader—I use the word lightly.”
Anonymous graduate student worker group files unfair labor practice charge against SWC-UAW
October 1, 2025 // Graduate Researchers Against Discrimination and Suppression, a new group, alleges that the union is halting bargaining for issues unrelated to employment.The group filed the charge amid stalled negotiations between the University and the union for a new contract after its first contract expired on June 30. The negotiations have halted over the University’s refusal to let the union broadcast bargaining sessions over Zoom for its members or let its president Grant Miner, who the University expelled in March, attend negotiations. The parties have not met since March. The union’s bylaws state that bargaining sessions must be “made accessible to the entire membership via Zoom or an equivalent platform.” The union conducted negotiations for its first contract in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic over Zoom and argues that its members who have fled the country fearing deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, such as Ranjani Srinivasan, a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, deserve to witness bargaining.
Columbia GRADS (Graduate Researchers Against Discrimination and Suppression) Hit UAW Union With Federal Labor Board Charges
September 25, 2025 // While federal law conditions union bosses’ monopoly bargaining powers on a nebulous “duty of fair representation,” union officials often ignore this duty and discriminate against those who oppose the union’s control.
Columbia GRADS (Graduate Students Against Discrimination and Suppression) Hit UAW Union With Federal Labor Board Charges
September 23, 2025 // GRADS’ charges list a number of outrageous bargaining items from UAW union officials, including: “proposals to force Columbia to limit campus police, security, and NYPD from doing their jobs;” “bargain[ing] over…so-called ‘Boycott, Divest & Sanction’ policies…of the entire university;” “termination of a dual-degree program between Columbia and Tel Aviv University;” and undoing discipline for students who have been suspended for “destroy[ing] campus property and disrupt[ing] the unit’s working conditions for extended periods.” “These and similar actions constitute bad faith bargaining…and violate the duty of fair representation that respondent union owes to all represented graduate students,” the charges state.