1000 Columbia Workers Strike

Approximately 1000 clerical workers at Columbia University went on a one-day strike yesterday, but most university activities proceeded as usual, officials said.

Workers in District 65 of the United Auto Workers, who are largely Columbia office and support staff, staged a massive walkout at a main gate of the campus. They were demanding a wage increase and improved benefits.

Repeated calls to the Columbia branch office for District 65 were not returned. Staff at the district main office would not comment on specific details of the strike.

According to Thomas P. Forman, a reporter for the Columbia University Daily Spectator, union officials turned down a university offer of a 3.5 percent wage increase over three years in negotiations Wednesday.

A Columbia press release said that "proposals by the union would increase salaries by 11 percent and raise health benefits costs more than 40 percent."

"Such increases are substantially above amounts the university can afford to give these or any other group of employees and are above the levels of recent comparable contracts elsewhere," the statement said.

Contract negotiations between the union and the university broke off Wednesday but resumed yesterday, according to staff at the District 65 office. Results of those negotiations were unavailable.

While union organizers reportedly asked students and faculty members to honor the strike by skipping or cancelling classes, those requests went largely unheeded, according to the Daily Spectator

"It looks like everything is going to proceed as usual," Forman said.

Forman said the workers plan to strike two days next week, three days the following week and an additional day each week thereafter until their demands are met.