Minority Strikes and Majority Power: Graduate Student Workers on Strike
Channel: Labor Notes
Date: 2022-04-28

Conventional wisdom has it that strikes win only with a solid majority of workers.

Yet two powerful, successful, and audacious strikes by graduate student workers - at UC-Santa Cruz (2020) and Columbia University (2021) - upended that myth. In both strikes, a bold strategy bolstered by a culture of inclusive and transparent democratic unionism got the goods, producing wins in wages, benefits, anti-harassment protections, rolling back retaliatory firings, and - after the 10-week strike at Columbia - pay back wages.

Join us to hear from strike leaders about how they won demands that far exceeded expectations by including the majority in decisions and actions, beyond the minority who struck.

Panelists:

Joanna Lee and Katryn Evinson (Student Workers of Columbia/UAW 2110)
Jack Davies and Stefan Yong (UC-Santa Cruz/UAW 2865).