Columbia Again Refuses to Negotiate with Graduate Student Workers

For the graduate student workers at Columbia University, the path to unionization has not been simple.

The regional National Labor Relations Board twice rejected the petition to form a union in 2015. Nearly a year later, after the NLRB overturned a 2004 ruling that stated graduate students did not have the right to unionize, the students tried again.

In December of 2016, the graduate student body voted 1,602 to 623 to join the United Auto Workers. Then, after the election was challenged by Columbia, the NLRB finally certified those results last month.

"We really thought that we had gotten over the last hurdle," said Ian Bradley-Perrin, a third year PhD student who sits on the bargaining committee for the graduate student union, which represents research and teaching assistants.

In a letter Tuesday to the Columbia University community, Provost John H. Coatsworth said the university would not sit down to the bargaining table with the union, GWC-UAW Local 2110.

"We remain convinced that the relationship of graduate students to the faculty that instruct them must not be reduced to ordinary terms of employment," Coatsworth wrote. "It is a conviction that, in the end, made this admittedly difficult decision straightforward for us."

To student and research assistant Bradley-Perrin, the dismissal was deeply disappointing. He said that graduate students are also workers who deserve the right to bargain for their wages and employment standards.

"We come into our positions not knowing how much money we'll be making, how many hours we'll be expected to work, who our supervisors are, what the nature of the work is, all while having to navigate the academic portion of grad school," said Bradley-Perrin, "which is why we're here."

Coatsworth's letter states that the university will ask a federal appeals court to hear the case on whether student research and teaching assistants are workers with the right to collective bargaining.

UAW regional director Julie Kushner said Columbia's refusal to negotiate "shows total and continued disrespect for the democratic will of these workers."