The graduate workers union, a local of the United Auto Workers, has filed two unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board. If the Board rules in their favor, it would classify the strike as an unfair labor practice strike and make the university’s threat to permanently replace them illegal. The university is arguing that the strike is an economic one and that the unfair labor practice charges “lack merit.”
“They (Columbia University) email lies to the undergraduates saying that not all of us are striking and that the [union] leadership is runaway with radicalism. And it’s not true. And we can tell by the numbers out here that the people are demanding things in solidarity together.”