Columbia University student workers’ union withdraws Israel divestment demand
The Columbia University student workers' union withdrew its demand that the university divest financially from Israel at a bargaining meeting this week.
The union constitutes over 3,000 undergraduate and graduate student workers. At a general body meeting on Monday, the union’s members voted on the decision.
SWC-UAW pulled a contract article entitled “Obligations Under International Law,” which pressed the university to divest from companies and state actors in violation of international law, as defined by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.
It also demanded that the university publicise its finances twice a fiscal year, including all direct and indirect investments and holdings, and permit the union to submit a “list of entities from which the University shall divest”, detailing how the entities violated international law.
The union argued for the article on the basis that its members, as workers who produce value for the university, hold a stake in how its money is invested.
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This withdrawal signifies a major shift in the union’s politics and orientation, as it has devoted itself to Columbia’s pro-Palestinian student movement since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Over 73,000 people have been killed since Israel began its assault on the enclave after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in October 2023.
Financial divestment from Israel has been the central goalpost for the Columbia pro-Palestinian student movement, which established the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and occupied Hamilton Hall in April of 2024.
In the aftermath of those actions, SWC-UAW passed a June 2024 resolution championing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The union further campaigned for Columbia to suspend its dual degree programme with Tel Aviv University and halt plans to open a new facility in Tel Aviv.
Following two New York Police Department sweeps of the encampment and Hamilton Hall, the union attempted to permanently prohibit NYPD officers from its Morningside Heights campus through another June “Cops off Campus” resolution.
The union has engaged in negotiations with Columbia for a successor contract since March of 2025, initially expecting the expiration of its first contract that June. However, a general stalemate has persisted due to contention over what constitutes a "workplace issue".
The union has since proposed 34 contract articles, from matters of compensation to demands for job assurance in the face of AI. The university did not respond to them, and asserted that the proposals lay outside the 2018 framework, which confines bargaining about academic or operational matters.
The National Labor Relations Act legally obligates both the union and the university to bargain over mandatory subjects such as wages or working conditions.
Columbia will open its global centre in Tel Aviv this summer.
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