A Columbia Grad Worker’s Response to a Boss Who Doesn’t Bargain

In an email to the Columbia community on April 18, Provost John H. Coatsworth responded to the demand of our graduate worker union that the university meet its legal obligation to bargain. He rejected our right to bargain, and he was very convincing.

Student instructors, teaching assistants, researchers, and graders should not strike, he argues, because they are not really workers. When it comes to actual workers, Provost Coatsworth assures us, Columbia is already supportive of their labor rights. It’s not that Columbia is hostile to unionized employees — just this particular union.

How much does Columbia support labor rights? So much that it has refused to allow sick days to the medical assistants, members of SEIU 1199, who work in its medical center. So much that it outsourced jobs that used to be covered by the UAW-Local 2110 contract, so it could pay poverty wages to even more workers rather than living wages under a union. So much, in fact, that it is handing over more and more teaching responsibility to overworked and underpaid adjunct faculty. If that’s not pro-labor credentials, I don’t know what is.

Provost Coatsworth also judiciously remarks that student workers should not strike because they should be grateful for the $82,000 of value they receive per year from the university. We should indeed be grateful if Columbia ever accepted, in lieu of rent, the $47,000 of mysteriously-assessed “tuition credit” they generously bestow on us. Or if the local grocers accepted “human capital” in exchange for beans and rice, or if our babysitters, day care centers, credit card companies, dentists, optometrists, pediatricians, utility providers, and student loan servicers would kindly accept this Columbia funny money during the five-plus years we serve the university as 30-something adults with adult responsibilities. We would be very grateful, indeed, to learn that we do not actually qualify for welfare benefits.

Provost Coatsworth also makes a very compelling argument when he notes that “the central problem with the union’s arguments about democracy” is that our overwhelming vote to unionize will affect future generations of graduate students. He’s right. We should all stop voting in every election until we can guarantee that nobody will ever change their minds again. I want to thank Provost Coatsworth, who has a Ph.D. in History, for identifying this novel problem with democracy, and I hope he will publish his findings in a reputable academic journal so we can all learn how to prevent progressive change.

On a related but important point, Provost Coatsworth was absolutely correct to point out that the possibility of future changes in labor law means that we probably shouldn’t follow it. After all, if democratic citizens do change their minds about how labor law ought to protect graduate workers — even though they’re not really supposed to be changing their minds (see above) — we should respect that change in advance. So it really is more democratic to wait around to see if a new Trump-appointed NLRB will fix labor law in Columbia’s favor.

As an aside — and this only because I’m biased — I was absolutely delighted to learn that Columbia, perhaps when it was crunching the union’s election numbers, discovered hundreds of heretofore unidentified non-voting graduate workers. It’s important to recognize the democratic rights of the disincorporated and incorporeal, too. They don’t change their minds, after all. And appeals to the imaginary “people” do lend democratic credibility, you have to admit.

I was especially impressed by the Provost’s observation that a union contract for graduate workers might impose ill-fitting blanket requirements on the university’s diverse array of institutions. I imagine the union’s bargaining committee was surprised to learn this. I had thought that the point of contract negotiations was to bargain over terms that would be sensitive to departments’ particular concerns, but I understand now that this is too hard and that it would be better not to bargain at all.

But what pleased me most about the Provost’s announcement was that “Columbia is a world-class university and our responsibility is to protect and enhance what makes it so — even when it means standing up for what we believe is essential to do that, even when others in our community hold sharply different views.” He’s right! When the law tells you to do something unjust, like respecting the results of a federally-sanctioned, legal and legitimate union election, it’s your moral responsibility to break that law. With his strong commitment to standing up for what is right, even if it means engaging in illegal behavior, Provost Coatsworth takes his rightful place among such icons of civil disobedience as Thoreau, Gandhi, and C. Montgomery Burns.

I’m convinced. You?

#CUStrikeout #WeAreWorkers #CUbargainnow