NEW YORK A prominent transit union leader plans to sue Columbia University over alleged mistreatment of school staffers during a building seizure last week the latest labor group to wade into the debate surrounding campus unrest.
John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union which represents 155,000 workers across the airline, transit, railroad, universities, utilities and service sectors castigated Columbia President Minouche Shafik for waiting too long to authorize the NYPD to clear out Hamilton Hall after demonstrators occupied it last Tuesday night.
Its on them to protect their workforce and they didnt do it, Samuelsen told POLITICO. He called dissidents behavior toward staffers working at the time of the takeover, including two custodians and a security officer, an outrageous affront to working people.
One of the unions local branches represents 725 workers at Columbia, including custodians, security officers and electricians.
Officials should have known the building was a target given its history as the site of an occupation by students advocating for racial justice in the 1960s, he charged.
Were exploiting every legal means at our disposal against Columbia, against the individual occupiers of the building [who] thought that they could hold our custodians hostage to their ideology, he added.
The union honcho, who also represents the 44,000-member Transport Workers Union Local 100, insisted he supports students constitutional right to protest.
Samuelsen repeated a claim to which Mayor Eric Adams has been clinging since police officers responded to protests at Columbia and City College: that outside agitators snuck into student encampments and exacerbated tensions.
The NYPD arrested 109 protesters at Columbia and 173 at City College. The mayor has continued to defend the timing of police officers response.
A Columbia spokesperson declined to comment on Samuelsens legal threat.
An organizer for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the group that was behind the encampment but was not involved in the takeover of Hamilton, told POLITICO they could not speak to the actions committed by or words said by the autonomous group of students who occupied Hamilton.
The vast majority of individuals involved were peaceful and only had the intention of being peaceful and treating people with respect, said the organizer, who was granted anonymity, adding that its the first time theyre hearing about the allegations.
The move represents a significant escalation by one of the most politically active unions in New York state, as Shafik and Adams deal with political fallout from the NYPDs crackdown on protests on campuses. The union has not shied from picking fights with powerful Democrats Samuelson recently launched an attack ad against Gov. Kathy Hochul amid an ongoing disagreement over a union contract.
In a letter to Shafik late Monday morning, Samuelsen urged the president to provide the names of the protesters arrested inside Hamilton Hall, access to footage from the building and information the NYPD gave to Columbia on the number of students who participated in the demonstration as well as outside actors.
He also wants to meet with Shafik and discuss steps to ensure workers safety if the protests resume, as well as compensation for affected union members.
When the custodians told the demonstrators that they wanted to get out of the building, at least one smarmy, sanctimonious, elitist ... occupier in a reference to the Gaza protests and takeover of Hamilton told them they would not be able to exit premises because this moment is bigger than you, Samuelsen alleged in the letter.
The custodians had to then fight their way toward one of the barricaded exits to escape, he said.
The security officer, an African American woman, managed to slip out before the barricades were set up, Samuelsen added. But shes still shaken by her run-in with the demonstrators who verbally attacked her in a very aggressive and extremely offensive manner, he said.
Labor unions have been increasingly weighing in on turmoil afflicting institutions across the country. Shawn Fain, president of United Auto Workers, blasted the mass arrests. Other unions have called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
The Professional Staff Congress, the City University of New Yorks faculty and staff union, on Monday requested that CUNY Chancellor Flix Matos Rodrguez ask Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to drop charges against students and employees.
CUNY faculty recently staged a strike in support of the protest, but the union did not authorize or support it.
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Sadly none of the protestors will be charged for anything relating to the custodians.
Not all of the protesters were responsible for traumatizing these custodians. Many are actually innocent and should not be prosecuted for expressing their right to free speech.
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In a letter to Shafik late Monday morning, Samuelsen urged the president to provide the names of the protesters arrested inside Hamilton Hall, access to footage from the building and information the NYPD gave to Columbia on the number of students who participated in the demonstration as well as outside actors.
New York has so many Unions and seemingly besides most of the ones I dislike.