A significant section of graduate workers at Columbia University have taken the courageous stand to continue their strike in defiance of the university and the United Auto Workers union.
The decision of the bargaining committee to accept a “pause” in the strike was in clear and direct opposition to the will of the 3,000 rank and file members.
A sharp warning must be made: Before the strike has even begun, the UAW is doing everything to sell it out.
The bargaining committee is employing many well-known mechanisms to try to browbeat the students into accepting a sellout proposal.
Columbia’s Board of Trustees is run by a collection of multi-millionaire and billionaire hedge fund managers and CEOs with deep ties to Wall Street, Corporate America, the Democratic Party and the military-industrial complex.
The struggle at Columbia, like all struggles of the working class, poses the question: Who should control the resources of society?
The UAW is not a workers organization but an arm of corporate management that works to isolate and suppress all opposition to the policies of the ruling class.
There are fundamental political considerations behind the media blackout, in addition to Columbia University’s financial and public relations interests.
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The vote is a devastating blow to the United Auto Workers and the majority of the GWC Bargaining Committee, who endorsed the contract despite overwhelming opposition from the rank and file.
The IYSSE urges student workers to draw the necessary political conclusions: Not a single step forward can be taken within the confines of the unions.
The strike “pause” at Columbia is intended to demobilize workers and prepare a sell-out deal.
From the beginning of the strike, the United Auto Workers union has worked to isolate graduate students at Columbia University, including from graduate students at neighboring NYU.
Autoworkers and others support the fight of Columbia graduate student-workers as the strike begins its third week.
We urge graduate students strikers to join us by building an independent rank-and-file strike committee to unite with other university student workers, K-12 educators and the working class more broadly throughout the US and internationally.
The New York Educators Rank-and File Safety Committee calls on all New York City workers and, in particular, K-12 educators to support the strike by Columbia University graduate teaching and research assistants.
The strikes by graduate workers is part of a broader movement of workers throughout the globe
