Feed and Support Striking Student Workers!

[I am organizing this fund because my brother, Paul Brown, is an organizer with SWC and is coordinating the effort to get food for the picket line]

Student Workers of Columbia UAW-2110, a union of teaching and research assistants at Columbia University, are on strike for a fair first contract. Student workers at Columbia are paid on average $12000 below what experts calculate as an annual living wage for an adult living in Manhattan with no children, and we have no dental or eye insurance on our student plan. The Columbia University refuses to give student workers a living wage or real recourse on bullying, harassment, and discrimination, all while bragging about making $3.3 billion in net gains over the past year. They refuse to give Student Workers of Columbia a fair contract, so now Student Workers of Columbia refuse to work under these conditions. This means they are walking the picket line: the picketers are out in the cold for long hours each day, in need of warmth and nourishment.

 

To support striking student workers, we will be teaming up with local restaurants, in the very communities that Columbia University often ignores and displaces, to bring good food to picketers and help strengthen a sense of community in Morningside Heights and Harlem. Please help support both local restaurants and SWC members who are fighting for fairness and dignity.

 

Importantly, please also consider donating to this hardship fund to stand in solidarity with the SWC. Columbia has threatened not just to withhold strikers' wages, but also to withhold their stipends they rely on to survive. This alarming--and illegal--move, in addition to creating a significant financial burden also threatens many workers' status as students at Columbia. Please note that all surplus funds from this food fund will be channeled into the hardship fund.


Photo credit to Rommel Nunez