Columbia University has been a political flash point from the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term, with the administration launching a legal and financial assault on the university in response to student Palestine protests and initiating politically motivated deportation proceedings against student activists like Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi. That conflict may now be entering a new phase, as the union representing graduate and undergraduate student workers, Student Workers of Columbia–United Auto Workers Local 2110 (SWC), has just voted to authorize a strike.
The strike vote comes after months of negotiations between student workers and the university, in which, workers say, there has been little progress. The union’s proposals include protections for noncitizen workers, restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence, ensuring adequate health care coverage, and pay increases commensurate with New York City’s cost of living. SWC held a strike authorization vote from February 20 to March 6, and on March 10, the union announced that 91 percent of voters had opted to authorize a strike, with 75 percent of eligible members participating.
For Jacobin, Ashkan Jahangiri spoke to three elected leaders of SWC while the vote was ongoing. They spoke about graduate workers’ key demands as well as the stakes of a potential strike — including the prospect that a hostile Trump National Labor Relations Board might take the opportunity to reverse the 2016 decision that opened the way to legal recognition of student worker unions at Columbia and other private universities.
Auteur: Fern Grear
