(The Center Square) — A group of Columbia University graduate students filed a complaint against a union over claims it is pushing the Ivy League school to limit the ability of NYPD and campus police to crack down on demonstrations.
In a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board, the Graduate Researchers Against Discrimination and Suppression argues that the Student Workers of Columbia UAW Local 2710 are acting in “bad faith” by demanding law enforcement-related concessions as part of collective bargaining negotiations.
“The union’s bargaining positions are made in bad faith because they are unrelated, in any conceivable way, to wages, hours and working conditions for the graduate student employees it purports to represent,” the group wrote in the four-page complaint.
The complaint alleges that the union is trying to bargain for a “cops off campus” provision in the new contract that would restrict access by the New York Police Department and representatives of governmental agencies. The union is also demanding veto power and notification when law enforcement agencies are called to campus.
Another complaint alleges that the union is raising unrelated issues of university discipline related to students who are not part of the graduate student bargaining unit. The group said that the collective bargaining team member was expelled and barred from the campus for participating in last year’s anti-Israel demonstrations over the war against Hamas.
“The union seeking amnesty for suspended or otherwise disciplined students destroyed campus property, and disrupted the unit’s working conditions for extended periods,” the group wrote in its complaint.
“These and similar actions constitute bad faith bargaining, restrain and coerce the charging party and other graduate student employees in their protected rights under the NLRA, and violate the duty of fair representation that the respondent owes to all representative graduate student employees,” the group wrote.
Columbia University was rocked by protests last year in response to Israel’s war against the terrorist group Hamas, which prompted the NYPD to break up encampments on the campus and arrest dozens of students.
The Trump administration investigated Columbia and other elite schools in February. It froze $400 million in federal grants over the university’s “failure to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment.” Columbia agreed to make reforms to prevent the federal government from withdrawing funds.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation supports the group’s complaint, accusing the UAW of “ramping up radical extremism” at the elite university.
“While it’s wrong from the start that any student is forced to accept union boss ‘representation’ they oppose, it’s even less acceptable that UAW union officials are trying to use their monopoly bargaining privileges to enforce their divisive politics on the entire campus, including undergraduate students,” Mark Mix, the foundation’s president, said in a statement.
