Demand Columbia University Play Fair

Censoring free speech, threatening job security, denying democratic rights, hiring a unionbuster...at Columbia University?

An internal memo from Columbia University, just leaked by The Nation magazine, shows just how far one of the nation’s leading academic institutions will go to prevent its graduate school’s teaching and research assistants from striking or trying to form a union.

The February 16 memo from Columbia’s Provost Alan Brinkley outlines threatening and intimidating tactics for university leaders, deans, and professors “to discourage” teaching and research assistants from striking. 

So, let’s write our own memo to Columbia:  Tell the University to stop its campaign and respect workers’ rights!

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Start Playing Fair & Respect Workers' Rights

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I've just learned about the tactics your University recommended its officials pursue to harm the ability of research and teaching assistants to exercise their rights as workers.

In light of this scandal, and for the sake of your employees, I strongly urge you to adopt and abide by a Declaration of Principles for collective bargaining in higher education at the institution you represent:

All workers at institutions of higher education must have the right to organize and bargain collectively. The freedom of association and the opportunity to act together to advance our lives and secure our futures are fundamental rights.

All higher-education employers must remain neutral in unionization efforts and be prohibited from using tuition, tax dollars or research funds to fight unionization. Employees should be allowed to form unions through a simple and democratic majority sign-up process.

Contracting and procurement by higher-education institutions, both public and private, must adhere to human rights, prevailing wage and responsible contractor standards. We cannot permit higher-education institutions, guardians of democratic principles and traditions, to circumvent laws that protect prevailing wages, community standards and the right to organize and bargain collectively.

Steady employment in higher education is a precondition to providing quality education and services and to guaranteeing a reasonable quality of life to academic employees. Job instability leads to inconsistency of service to students.

I urge you to uphold these principles.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
April 28, 2005


Background Information

In America, we expect to have a voice when it comes to our schools, our community, and our country.  The workplace should be no different.

Columbia’s teaching and research assistants want what more than one in five graduate employees nationwide now has – a union.  Why?  In spite of their substantial contributions to the University, they have no say in the decisions that directly affect their working lives.  So they organized, held a union election three years ago (which the University appealed), and have demonstrated time and time again that the majority of them desire a union.  But the University keeps denying them their democratic rights to a voice on the job.  So they finally decided to strike to get recognition.  The week-long strike just ended, but the University has not backed down. 

It’s time to tell Columbia University to respect workers’ rights,  remain neutral in union organizing efforts, and be prohibited from using tuition, tax dollars, or research funds to fight employees from organizing.  

Additional Resources:

  • To find out what happens to workers when they try to form unions and how labor law is failing us visit the American Rights at Work website.
  • Read more about unionbusting.
  • Learn more about the struggles graduate teaching assistants face when they try to organize by reading the story of David Faris, who has been fighting to form a union (along with 1,000 others) at the University of Pennsylvania for over three years.   Read David’s story here.
  • Read more about the Graduate Student Employees United who are organizing a union to represent teaching, research, and graduate assistants at Columbia University:
    http://www.2110uaw.org/gseu/index.htm