Graduate teaching assistants at Columbia University held a walkout on April 29, disrupting class schedules and raising grave concerns among students about to start finals.
The Columbia Graduate Students Employees United and United Auto Workers organized the strike to protest the university's appeal of the National Labor Relations Board decision that allowed graduate students to hold union elections.
In February 2000, the NLRB handed down its first ruling in favor of graduate student union elections for private universities at New York University. Since then, the NLRB has also allowed Brown, Columbia and Temple graduate students to hold elections.
The NLRB has allowed graduate students at public universities to unionize for years.
Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania members are currently awaiting an NLRB decision on the rights of Penn graduate students to follow in the footsteps of their peers at other schools. Hearings concluded in March, and the NLRB's decision could come at any time.
At the peak of the demonstration at Columbia, there were about 450 strikers who took part in a rally and chanted slogans such as "Make love, not appeals." GSEU members hailed the strike a triumph.
"It was a great success," Greg Vargo, a GSEU member and history graduate student, told The Columbia Daily Spectator. "I think it showed how committed people are to getting a union here on this campus."
As a result of the strike, three-quarters of writing classes compulsory for freshman were called off. For GET-UP members, this is further evidence of the importance of graduate students to the functioning of a university.
"If the administration insists graduate employees are not employees, [the walkout] shouldn't affect anything," GET-UP co-spokeswoman Joan Mazelis said in an interview.
"It must be difficult for the Columbia administration to continue to argue that Columbia graduate employees are only students and not employees when their one-day walkout from their jobs has such an effect," she added in an e-mail statement.
Despite the fact that the strike affected over 300 students and took place just before finals week, some graduate students claim that the action did not significantly harm undergraduates.
They were "able to show the strength of the union without crippling the university indefinitely," Mazelis said.
According to GET-UP, there is a distinction between the Columbia students' action and a strike.
"There are many other ways to have work stoppages and show the strength of the union," Mazelis said. "A one-day walkout is one such action, and a particularly effective one."
"They're not too disturbing... they don't cause too much of a disruption," added GET-UP co-spokesman Shane Duarte.
Penn administrators, however, do not seem convinced that such walkouts are so benign.
"A strike certainly is disruptive of the educational process," Deputy Provost Peter Conn said. "I don't see this as very helpful in promoting the academic mission of the university."
The status of teaching assistants continues to be the central argument between the University and GET-UP, with graduates insisting that they are employees and the University claiming they are valued students.
The strikes "merely ratify the position we've been taking for some time," Conn said. "They create division between members of the community and thus impinge on collegiality."
As far as GET-UP representatives are concerned, relations between a university and its graduate students can only improve once administrations acknowledge that teaching assistants have the right to unionize.
"Everyone wants the institution to run smoothly," Duarte said. "The school would be a better place if graduate employees were treated fairly."
GET-UP would only say it is "extremely speculative" whether they would ever launch similar action at Penn.
"For GET-UP to strike -- or to have any kind of work stoppage... the GET-UP membership would have to vote to approve such a measure," Mazelis said in her statement.
