FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OCTOBER 29, 2025

STUDENT WORKERS OF COLUMBIA, UAW LOCAL 2710

PRESS CONTACT: INFO@STUDENTWORKERSOFCOLUMBIA.COM

Columbia Threatens Discipline for Union Picket, Extends Repression to Labor Action

Columbia surveilled and threatened Student Workers of Columbia union members engaging in protected concerted activity – flouting the NLRA and explicitly extending its suppression of free speech to labor action.

NEW YORK, NY – On Friday, October 24, the University Rules Administrator Gregory Wawro sent warning letters to at least 20 members of the Student Workers of Columbia (SWC - UAW Local 2710) for participating in an October 17 practice picket on College Walk. The picketers demanded a fair contract that includes reopening the University’s campus to the public, ending Columbia Public Safety’s (PS) violent policing, and ceasing workplace surveillance.

Columbia is escalating its use of disciplinary processes to quell dissent and union bust. These letters do not impose punishments, but they threaten that the University will “retain a record of this warning” to be “referenced in the event of a future Rules-related incident.”

Although picketing is protected under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, the University has begun to suppress labor rights using the same tactics developed to persecute pro-Palestine protests. The very officers who intimidated SWC picketers brutalized students protesting against the Gaza genocide earlier this year. Columbia empowered these officers to arrest protestors and increase surveillance in the University’s $200 million dollar deal with the Trump administration, even though whistleblowers revealed that PS and HR collaborated to cover up the abuse of surveillance tools. Recently, Columbia secretly tightened campus protest rules, nominally exempting protected labor activity, but threatening retaliation in practice.

Columbia’s union-busting will not stop SWC from continuing to exercise its legally protected right to picket. The Union will negotiate over relevant contract articles with the University bargaining team on Friday, November 7 at 1pm at the Interchurch Center. 

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Student Workers of Columbia represents over 3,000 graduate and undergraduate workers employed in teaching and research at Columbia University.

https://www.studentworkersofcolumbia.com | @sw_columbia | @swcolumbia.bsky.social