Columbia Graduate Assistants Vote to Unionize, Will Join United Auto Workers

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — Teaching and research assistants at Columbia University voted Friday to unionize after winning the right in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling from August.

By a vote of 1602 in favor to 623 apposed the students decided to join the newly-created Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers Union, according to a press release.

"Today, 3,500 RAs and TAs like me have won a voice to make sure Columbia University is the best place possible to learn and work," said Addison Godel, a teaching assistant in the architecture school at Columbia University. "This marks a major victory for the entire Columbia community – we care deeply about the world-renowned teaching and research that happens at our university and are ready to tackle the issues that matter most to us, our students and our neighbors."

In August the graduate assistants at Columbia, and in private universities around the country, won the right to unionize when the NLRB overturned a 2004 ruling which denied graduate assistants employee status at private universities.

Leading up to Friday's vote elected officials such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Congressman Jerrold Nadler and Mayor Bill de Blasio encouraged the students to join the United Auto Workers (UAW), which represents more than 38,500 graduate workers at 48 campuses.

“This is just the beginning of great things to come for the Columbia community and we’re proud to stand with graduate workers to bargain collectively for important improvements to pay and benefits that strengthen academic quality and student success,” said Julie Kushner, the Director of UAW Region 9A. “By standing together, Columbia graduate workers have paved the way for thousands of other research assistants and teaching assistants to have a recognized voice in America’s higher education and build the institutions that we need for a more fair, just and equitable country.”

Photo by InSapphoWeTrust via Flickr/Creative Commons