BUZZ
Says contract negotiations require making concessions
Israeli divestment is no longer a demand of the student workers’ union at Columbia University, following a general body meeting vote last week.
Student Workers of Columbia–United Auto Workers made the decision as part of “contract negotiations,” according to the Columbia Spectator.
“You start off a campaign with one thing, and then as you bargain, you have to face the realities of where you are,” President Grant Miner told the student newspaper.
Negotiations have been ongoing since last year and divestment from Israel was one issue on the table. until now.
The student newspaper reported:
Both parties had been in a stalemate for months over disagreements concerning what constitutes a workplace issue. The union proposed 34 sweeping contract articles spanning bread and butter issues like compensation to demands that Columbia not replace its workers with AI. However, the University did not engage with many of them, arguing that the proposals fell outside of the 2018 framework agreement which restricts bargaining over academic or operational matters.
Forward, a Jewish news publication, said federal law typically requires negotiations only to be focused on specific working conditions.
“Under the National Labor Relations Act, employers and unions are required to bargain only over wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment,” the outlet reported. “Because university divestment is generally considered outside those mandatory subjects of bargaining, Columbia is not legally obligated to negotiate over it, though it could choose to do so voluntarily.”
Dropping divestment will not necessarily lead to employer-labor peace, however.
One union member told the student newspaper he expects a strike this fall.
“A lot of what has been happening at the table has been us dropping some articles, moving closer to the University, holding strong on certain demands, but ultimately moving forward in our contract campaign towards a set of demands that are narrower,” Frankie Tavares, a doctoral student, told the student newspaper.
Tavares said that he views the university’s investments as a labor issue, but agreed with union leadership that concessions are necessary during negotiations.
“We, as workers—as the people producing value for this institution—have a stake in how that money is invested,” Tavares said. “Because of these obligations that we all have under the international legal framework to maintain a certain commitment to human rights, we understand it as a labor issue when the value we produce is used to violate human rights.”
The university has been a hotbed of anti-Israel protests since October 7, 2023. At least two prominent pro-Palestinian organizers, Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Madawi, have come from the campus. The Trump administration is attempting to deport both Millennial graduate students over what it says are national security reasons.
Students for Justice in Palestine still plans to push for divestment at Columbia, as The College Fix recently reported.
