Support Staff Continue Picketing, Push For Wage Increases To Keep Up With Rising Inflation Rates

Upper West Side NY

02 May, 2022

5:10 PM

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By Talia Traskos-Hart Dylan Andres, Columbia Daily Spectator • May 2, 2022, 12:21 PM Support staff of the Local 2110 Technical, Office, and Professional Workers Union picketed on College Walk this week in support of a contract with higher wages and more comprehensive health protections. Twitter accounts and chants from the union said that organizers will attempt to shut down Columbia College's commencement ceremony on May 17 if they cannot negotiate a new contract with the University. The union, which covers support staff at Columbia, gained its first contract in 1985 as a result of disputes over pay parity for women and people of color. Now, the union seeks a new contract after its contract expired last year. Maida Rosenstein, the president of Local 2110, emphasized the support staff's commitment to the University, particularly given the long commutes of many support staff workers and their common role as breadwinners for their families. The union is hoping for an increase in wages to keep up with inflation, which increased to 8.5 percent in March 2022. The University is currently offering a wage rate increase of 2.2 percent. Shewanna House, who has been at Columbia for 25 years and works on the union's negotiation team, said that these wage increases will help support staff members pay their bills in a time of economic hardship. "Our bills and expenses are going up, but our paycheck is staying the same," she said. "If they stay at that two percent then we will be out here until we are able to get what it is that we want." The union is also seeking expanded funding for medical insurance. The current wage increase won't cover the $60 monthly fee that the University asks union members to pay for medical coverage. "We typically get our wage increases on Feb. 1. It's been months," Montserrat Fernandez-Pinkley, another member of the union's negotiation team and a trustee on the local's executive board, said. Picketing this week was reminiscent of the two-month long Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers strike that followed years of labor organizing and spanned the fall semester. SWC-UAW strikers won recognition of hourly workers in their union, the right to arbitration in cases of Title-IX based discrimination and harassment, wage increases, and access to health funds and partial dental insurance. Rosenstein said that the SWC-UAW strike and other labor organizing across the school and the city should be considered in the context of Local 2110's decades-long organizing. "Workers went out on strike over pay equity and over disparate pay," she said. "These issues are very fundamental to what people have been fighting for." Staff writer Talia Traskos-Hart can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @taliakth. 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.