PROGRESS

One of the Nation’s Largest Labor Strikes Has Come to an End

Columbia University’s 3,000-strong student worker union has come to a tentative bargaining agreement with the university.

Columbia University’s student worker union ended a two-month-long strike Friday, a day after the roughly 3,000-body group came to a tentative bargaining agreement with the university. In its second strike in a year, the group held long picket lines as it sought higher pay and increased workplace protections, according to the school’s independent newspaper the Columbia Daily Spectator. When the strike got underway in November, labor reporter Jonah Furman reported that it was the second-largest in the nation after the John Deere strike. The union’s graduate members will now be entitled to nine and 11 percent raises depending on the length of their contract, while its hourly members will see their wages rise to $22.50 by August 2024. Students will have more access to arbitration in the cases of discrimination, harassment, and Title IX filings.