GSEU strikes
In spring 2004 and 2005, the Graduate Student Employees United group engaged in strikes against Columbia. The group hoped to win the right of grad students to unionize and, subsequently, to secure greater benefits for graduate students. The strikes were large and disruptive, but failed to achieve their aims.
Background
The substance of the debate over grad student unionization consisted in whether graduate students were employees of the university or whether they were students. The students argued for the former interpretation, the university for the latter. The university claimed that, as students, the members of the GSEU did not have the right to have their group recognized nor the right to organize. The GSEU claimed that long hours spent teaching were tantamount to employment. A side argument revolved around the stipend paid grad students in general; while the university claimed it paid a stipend equal to those received by grad students at other Ivy League universities, the GSEU claimed that this was not enough to live off of in New York City.
The strikes
The strikes were timed to cause maximum disruption, occurring around exam time in the spring of each year. Grad students involved in the union, as well as many sympathizing grad students, took to picket lines established on Broadway. The perennial symbol of New York strikes, the inflatable rat, also found its way to the strike site. The 2005 demonstration was particularly rancorous; grad students were joined by sympathizers from both NYU and Yale, and large rallies took over several streets in Morningside Heights.
For undergraduates, the strikes had mixed results. Some exams and final assignments were canceled, leaving students who had performed well high and dry, and others without the opportunity to make up their work. Professors were forced to get their hands dirty and grade the remaining exams. Students who took the Lit Hum final in 2004 were not required to have read some of the books on the syllabus, notably To the Lighthouse, because many grad student instructors had not taught it.
Nevertheless, some classes had gone on - in grad students' apartments, in parks, or in nearby cafes. Grad students rationalized the continuation of their classes outside the university gates as a means to continue symbolically "striking" while not disadvantaging their undergraduate students.
