After a 10-week strike and years of organizing, 97.6% of SWC-UAW members vote to ratify historic contract

Upper West Side NY

28 January, 2022

4:28 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY TALIA TRASKOS-HART • JANUARY 28, 2022, 2:23 PM After 10 weeks of striking, the Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers voted to ratify a nationally significant contract with the University. Following a 15-day discussion period and a six-day voting period, the contract was supported by 97.6 percent of voting members of the SWC-UAW. The union has been fighting for this contract since 2014, when attempts at unionization first began. Many provisions in the current contract were not included in the tentative agreement produced by the spring 2021 strike, which was ultimately rejected by union membership and spurred a high-profile exit of union leadership. In an email to the University community on Friday afternoon, Provost Mary Boyce called the agreement "one of the most comprehensive and generous contracts between a private university and students who assume significant pedagogical and research responsibilities as part of their academic training." "Our principal goal throughout the process that led to this agreement has been to enable the highest level of scholarly achievement and personal fulfillment for our students in their roles, both as full-time students and as employees," she wrote. "We are confident that this contract will achieve that high purpose." The contract was brought about by a two-month strike, during which striking workers, undergraduate students, and faculty members called for protections and pay increases for all workers, including hourly employees. The strike involved a campus shutdown by picketers, questions over undergraduate credit loss, and large-scale class cancellations as faculty stood in solidarity with striking workers. The duration of this strike was unique in comparison to Harvard's strike in fall 2021, in which the union and the university reached a contract after striking for only three days. However, Harvard's contract produced a narrower set of workplace protections than the contract ratified by the SWC-UAW. The SWC-UAW contract is also unique in being the first student-worker contract at Columbia, while student-workers at schools like Harvard and New York University have long been protected by such contracts. Roger Creel, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the geophysics and seismology department, noted that the contract represents many of the union's primary asks. "The strength of this contract is that it offers so many of the crucial components of what students have wanted," he said. "For parents, there are increases in child care. For families and folks who need dental, there's dental insurance. … For everyone, there are increases in compensation [of] at least 3 percent a year." Increases in pay are among the contract's major provisions. Raises from this contract will total $100 million over the next four years. The contract will also provide pay parity, allowing student-workers in the School of Social Work and Mailman School of Public Health to receive pay levels that match the minimum support levels of other schools. The contract includes robust health benefits, including a $300,000 Student Employee Support Fund and a $150,000 fund for the dependents of student employees. Notably, the contract will also allow Title IX complaints to move into either arbitration or mediation after completing an internal appeals process. This provision, which has consistently been a major priority for union members, represents substantial movement from the tentative agreement produced last spring. "For all of the survivors of assault at Columbia, for all the students who endured trauma and then looked at a process that wasn't going to be in their best interest and said, 'I just can't do that,' this contract is a huge improvement," Creel said. This shift to arbitration in cases of Title IX is unprecedented in higher education contracts. The provost's office noted that "this proposal goes well beyond what Harvard agreed to with their graduate student union." Over the duration of the strike, undergraduates faced concerns—reminiscent of those experienced during previous strikes at the University—over canceled classes, learning loss, and worries about course credit recovery. With a deal reached, student-workers like Caroline Smith, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in art history, look forward to returning to teaching and finalizing fall semester content. "I'm so excited to be back into the classroom," she said. "I'm really excited to read their final papers and close that loop with them." Student-workers who went on strike are currently working to complete makeup work from the fall semester. Smith explained that back pay is important in alleviating the economic burdens of striking. "People are financially hurting and so it's really important that we get compensated for any makeup work that we're doing," she said. This makeup work will include reviewing undergraduates' work from last semester to ensure that final grades and credit can be awarded. In certain courses taught by striking workers, however, undergraduates still lost substantial time in the classroom, calling into question their ability to receive credit. The University expects to see standard functioning this semester. Negotiations for a future contract, and the potential for a future strike, will begin when the contract expires in May 2025. Joanna Lee, a third-year doctoral student in the department of East Asian languages and cultures, explained that union members look forward to potentially expanding this contract's wins in future negotiations. "A four-year contract duration … is really important for organizing, because we will have institutional memory and also an opportunity to strike again at the end of the contract duration if we have to," she said. Smith hopes contract negotiations in 2025 will bring about further gains, such as vision insurance and increased compensation. "This is not the end of this; it's really the beginning," Smith said. "We're going to continue to organize, continue to educate, to build community, and to hold the University accountable for the gains we've already made. … For me, it's just [important] knowing that there are material benefits to the sacrifices we've made over the past 10 weeks or more." Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.