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Grad Students Stage Sick-Outs And Rent Strikes To Protest Columbia And NYU's COVID-19 Response
By
Caroline Lewis
Published May 11, 2020
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By
Caroline Lewis
Published May 11, 2020
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As undergraduates have seen their campuses close and their classes go online because of the pandemic, some graduate students at NYU and Columbia University have stopped teaching, holding office hours, and grading student work before the end of the semester.
The grad students at both institutions are protesting what they say is a lack of support from their schools during the COVID-19 outbreak. They want increased summer stipends, the option of extended timelines with more funding to finish their degrees, and greater assistance for international students. Columbia graduate students are also demanding the cancellation of rent in university apartment housing. Rent for the entire summer is due in June.
According to Glassdoor, PhD students at NYU and Columbia earn around $35,000 a year, on average, for a nine-month appointment plus a summer stipend. In both cases, graduate students say the wealthy institutions—Columbia’s endowment is just shy of $11 billion, while NYU’s is a more modest $4 billion— have essentially created a “company town,” where they are both the major landlord and employer.
Sam Stella, a PhD student in the Department of Religion at Columbia, lives in university housing with his wife and two-year-old son. He says money is tighter now because his wife was laid off amid the coronavirus pandemic from her job at a nonprofit that coordinates seasonal employment for international students.
Columbia has offered to increase its typical $3,000 summer stipend for graduate students with an extra $1,500 and is allowing those who are not employed by the university over the summer to apply for an additional $1,500.
Stella is taking the $1,500 boost along with a research assistant position at the university. But he says the pay is still low and he, along with others in his building, won’t be paying rent this summer (in his case, $5,022 for June, July and August). Columbia already waived April and May rents for small business tenants in its buildings but hasn’t extended the same courtesy to the residential tenants it also employs. So far, Columbia has only offered to waive cancellation fees and prorate rent for students who move out earlier than expected.
“I don’t think the college wants to have homeless graduate students, but one of us has been laid off and the other doesn’t make enough working for the college,” Stella said. “You’re both paying me and charging me rent so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Stella added, “The whole point of college housing is that the college is supposed to have some special understanding of your needs. Otherwise, what business does the college have being a residential landlord at all?”
On the other side of town, Sarah Sklaw, a PhD student in the History Department at NYU, says she’s hoping for an extra year of funding to do research for her dissertation, which she says has been interrupted by the coronavirus.
Sklaw had to cancel a trip to research international development programs in Nicaragua this summer and says she also can’t take domestic trips to access physical archives. “I think a lot of people think all sources are online but that’s not true,” she said.
At the same time, she said, many people who thought they had jobs or research positions secured for the summer have had them withdrawn because of the pandemic. She says while some departments at NYU have said they will try to secure additional funding for graduate students, there hasn’t been a strong guarantee of support from the university.
The work stoppages at Columbia and NYU are part of a broader wave of strike actions happening throughout the country as workers protest employers’ response (or lack thereof) to the realities of COVID-19.
Graduate students at both schools are represented by the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers union. But in both cases, participants in the work stoppages went rogue.
At Columbia, organizers say more than 300 student workers took part in the strike announced on April 24th, even though it wasn’t authorized by GWC-UAW's bargaining committee. The graduate students’ union had been preparing to strike before everyone’s attention shifted to COVID-19 because of stalled contract negotiations with Columbia (the university also took years to recognize the union in the first place). But the end-of-semester action ended up being focused on more immediate concerns related to coronavirus.
“While GWC-UAW did not call for this strike, we urge the university to respect workers’ right to engage in protected activity as we strongly support the right of workers to engage in protected activity,” the GWC-UAW said in a statement on its website.
At NYU, about 115 teaching assistants, or about 20 percent of graduate students, participated in a three-day “sick out” this week that was organized as a way to circumvent the no-strike clause in their union contract.
With classes taking place online and no possibility of an in-person protest or picket line, these actions have been less visible. Columbia maintains there was no evidence of any work stoppage at all. But there is evidence the administration noticed the impact. The Columbia strike Twitter account posted a screenshot of an email to a graduate student from Carmen DeLeon, assistant provost for academic appointments.
“We understand that you may not have met the students in your course as scheduled yesterday, Monday, April 27th,” the email read. “Please let us know if you did, in fact, meet with the class or, if you did not, the reason for your absence. You should know that you will not be paid if you missed the class because you were on strike.”
NYU, on the other hand, has called the sick-out a violation of graduate students’ union contract, even though they were using allotted sick days.
“The University is sympathetic to the adverse situations that COVID-19 has caused for many in the University, including graduate students, and has been and remains committed to supporting its students' health, well-being, and academic progress,” NYU said in a statement. “Nevertheless, a job action by graduate workers would be a violation of the contract they signed and agreed to.”
NYU went on to appeal to students’ sympathy for its own financial situation, saying, “We would ask that all members of the community be mindful of the reality that the University itself is in financial straits unlike those seen in decades, and even as there may be new challenges and needs, resources are far scarcer.”
NYU has pledged to put all of the $25 million it's yet to receive from the federal CARES Act towards direct student assistance. The school’s current coronavirus emergency aid fund, irrespective of the federal grant, only awards needy students between $200 and $500.
Tagged
COVID-19
columbia
coronavirus
NYU
Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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