NEW YORK (AP) - In a story April 30 about a strike at Columbia University, The Associated Press erroneously reported the status of a legal dispute between the school and the union representing graduate teaching assistants. University officials want a federal appeals court to review whether the students have a right to unionize, but they have not filed a legal action to prompt that review.
A corrected version of the story is below:
Columbia teaching assistants end week-long protest strike
Graduate teaching and research assistants at Columbia University end one-week protest strike over administration’s refusal to bargain
By ALEXANDRA VILLARREAL
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - The last week of the academic year at Columbia University has been even more hectic than usual.
Papers have gone ungraded and review sessions unstaffed as protesting graduate students finished a week-long strike Monday over the Columbia University administration’s refusal to bargain with their union.
“What’s disgusting? Union busting!” chanted hundreds of students as they paced along a street in the middle of the New York City campus, accompanied by the thump of a drum.
The crowd was comprised of members from the Graduate Workers of Columbia University (GWC-UAW) as well as sympathizers, who after five days of picketing still croaked their slogans despite waning voices.
Almost two years after the National Labor Relations Board overturned a previous decision to rule that teaching assistants and graduate research assistants at Columbia were entitled to unionize, administrators have refused to negotiate with GWC-UAW’s bargaining committee.
University officials want a federal appeals court to review whether the students have a right to unionize, but they have not filed a legal action to prompt that review.
To demand action, members of the union voted overwhelmingly to strike during the last week of Columbia’s academic year.
For some, it felt like their only way to get better treatment.
“They’re never going to talk to us unless we force them to, and the way we force them to is striking,” said Trevor Hull, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the chemistry department and a member of GWC-UAW’s bargaining committee.
The administration remained firm in its resolve not to negotiate with the union, nor do Columbia officials have plans to bargain in the future.
“The National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly reversed itself on this issue depending on the changing political makeup of the board,” said Caroline A. Adelman, a university spokesperson. “We do not understand why the GWC-UAW prefers the pressure tactics of a strike to a definitive, nonpartisan resolution of that legal question in the federal courts.”
On Sunday the university’s provost penned an op-ed in Columbia’s student newspaper calling for a resolution in court. The next day, wind and scattered showers did not deter picketers from rising up, including some alumni supporters.
On the steps of Low Library, New York’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Columbia alumnus, told the crowd, “When there’s a misuse of power, we can’t stand for that. The law must prevail over power, and that’s what we’re dealing with here.”
Nadler told the Associated Press that he believed Columbia was trying to hold out until President Donald Trump appoints more conservative members to the NLRB who might reverse the decision from August 2016.
“I assume the administrators here would be the first to oppose the Trump administration’s challenging the rule of law in so many different areas,” he said. “They shouldn’t be encouraging it, and going along with it, and trying to take advantage of it here.”
New York Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Barnard College alumna Cynthia Nixon also made an appearance. She swung a pro-union sign over her coat and joined the picket line.
“I think the power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will,” Nixon said. “It’s really important what these graduate students and adjuncts are doing today, and I think it’s shameful that Columbia will not honor their demands for a union and will not sit down with them.”
Although Monday marked the final day of the strike, Hull said it will not be the union’s last unless Columbia changes its position.
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