We are CU community members speaking out against Columbia’s refusal to grant protections to all student workers.
Join us in urging Columbia to give workplace rights to all workers, including protections against late pay, discrimination and harassment. We are a group of Columbia/Barnard community members, including alums, workers, worker allies, parents, undergraduates, faculty, and community leaders, speaking out against Columbia’s refusal to grant workplace protections to all student workers. Columbia is cu
01/03/2022
Columbia is more intent on breaking the Student Workers of Columbia's strike than delivering on the education it promised undergrads. Stay tuned for action items to protest Columbia's unfair treatment of both its grad student workers and its undergrads!
01/02/2022
Read this excellent piece by striking Columbia grad worker Eduardo Vergara Torres: https://contingentmagazine.org/2022/01/01/strange-beasts-of-columbia/
"Columbia can at times appear to us as a monster of many tentacles: it is our academic advisor, our employer, our landlord, our health insurer and provider, our safeguard against discrimination and harassment, our visa sponsor. Comparisons with a company town fall short in depicting how horrific it can be to fall from grace with such an organism."
Strange Beasts of Columbia We stand together and we will not give up.
01/02/2022
Don't forget to keep donating to the hardship fund for the Student Workers of Columbia! Especially now that striking grad instructors are being threatened with replacement, they need the community's help more than ever:
Hardship Fund for Columbia Student Workers #CUonStrike - Open Collective Donations will support students who can no longer afford rent, groceries, or healthcare because of Columbia’s failure to provide adequate wages and sudden change to pay policy.
01/02/2022
Check out the video from the Student Workers of Columbia's Rally for Recognition! Hear experts speak on the importance of recognizing ALL workers as a part of the union's bargaining unit:
Rally for Recognition Student workers of Columbia University rallied on December 30th, 2021, to call on the university administration to reach a fair contract including full reco...
The jobs of graduate instructors of record are in jeopardy. Columbia is threatening to replace striking workers of cancel classes. Email Columbia admin to tell them to stop! Templates and email addresses here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tS6dmJjT7yfd2UCB4f95ui3LIOFlkLsoxm4Nn9GWTsY/edit?usp=sharing
Columbia is making good on their promise to replace striking graduate instructors of record. Tell faculty and admin to use their power to protect striking instructors of record—email addresses & templates are here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tS6dmJjT7yfd2UCB4f95ui3LIOFlkLsoxm4Nn9GWTsY/edit?usp=sharing
12/31/2021
Help the Student Workers of Columbia keep admin's phones ringing off the hook all day! Let them know that their attempts to create a two-tiered system of student workers at Columbia is unacceptable. Sign up here:
admin phone call sheet Sheet1 Admin/time-slot,Bollinger,Boyce,Driscoll,Kachani,Alonso,Idina Gorman?,Patsy?,???,SCRIPT: 12128549970,2128542404,212-851-2776 (Dan personally); 2128510617 (general HR),(212) 854-1804,212-854-2861,(Feel free to make this your own!) [email protected],
Full recognition per the NLRB certification will afford casual/hourly workers protection from discrimination. The appellate process that Provost Boyce referenced in some of her emails is NOT the same as neutral arbitration.
12/30/2021
Come to the Student Workers of Columbia's rally to advocate for protections for ALL Columbia student workers! Starts in 15 min (Thurs, Dec 30, 1pm)—register here: http://bit.ly/rally4recognition
Columbia's contract proposal currently excludes hourly workers—come through and let them know that we refuse to leave any student worker behind!
12/30/2021
Take a little deep dive this morning into why ALL workers—hourly workers, too!—need workplace protections!
Shaina is a Computer Science TA, hired as an hourly worker: "If there's one thing I learned from the overenrollment [in CompSci], it's that the administration does not care about us. They are perfectly happy to let their students suffer and their TAs be overworked."
Protections for hourly student workers are now or never. If the Student Workers of Columbia accept Columbia’s arbitrary hourly threshold, a two-tier system will be established. Why should workers be cut out of the union when they're already recognized by the NLRB?
12/30/2021
FACT CHECK: Provost Mary Boyce claims Columbia’s position on which workers can receive union protections is “expansive and goes beyond what is required by the National Relations Board (NLRB).”
FALSE: The NLRB makes no mention of an hourly limit before workers are eligible for membership in the bargaining unit of the Student Workers of Columbia.