Columbia Refuses To Bargain With Graduate Student Union

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — Columbia University announced that it will not bargain with teaching and research assistants that formed a labor union.

In an email sent to members of the Columbia University community, the ivy league's provost John H. Coatsworth said the school's administration is "deeply concerned" with an outside party — the United Auto Workers — being involved in "academic and intellectual judgments by faculty members."

"Because of the principles at stake—principles essential to the University’s mission of training scholars—we have declined to bargain until the legal process has been allowed to run its course. 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 said in the email.

Instead of bargaining, Columbia will seek a review of the status of graduate assistants by a federal appeals court, the provost's email said.

The Graduate Workers of Columbia UAW Local 2110 called the university's refusal to bargain "deeply disappointing," and organized a protest Thursday in front of the university's Low Library.

"The administration has made themselves clear on where their convictions stand. They are waiting for a President Trump appointed [National Labor Relations Board] to take away our collective bargaining rights, to throw away our democratic election and ignore their own principles for democracy," the union said in a statement.

In March, 2017 the NLRB ruled to uphold the results of a December 2016 election where teaching and graduate assistants at the university voted in favor of forming a union. Graduate students voted 1602 in favor to 623 apposed to join the newly-created Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers Union. Shortly after the vote Columbia University filed objections with the NLRB citing six examples of misconduct — including various forms of voter suppression and voter intimidation — and claimed that the misconduct could have had an influence on the election.

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