Why do we need a strong Health and Safety contract article?

Background

A year and a half of heightened policing and surveillance

Since we began our campaign, surveillance and policing at Columbia has drastically escalated. In response to the overwhelming community support for the divestment demands, Columbia restricted access to campus only to University affiliates and began tracking people entering campus. Columbia installed checkpoints with mandatory card swipes at each entrance and increased PS patrols. In Fall 2024, Columbia contracted the Pinkerton detective agency, the same organization infamous for firing on and killing striking workers during the Homestead Steel Mill Strike, to consult on the expansion of the Office’s capacity .These Pinkertons, whose official mandate Columbia has never publicly disclosed, have been seen tearing down union posters and helping implement the new campus security checkpoints. In Spring 2024, PS hired thirty-six new officers with arrest power through funds supplied by an anonymous donor to the approbation of the Trump admin. Executive Vice President of Facilities and Operations David Greenberg admitted in a meeting with students that these arresting officers were being trained to police “labor actions” and protests. Columbia also promised the Trump administration to adopt heightened workplace surveillance technologies. In Summer 2025, Columbia secretly changed school discipline rules and procedures: Our co-governance body, the University Senate, was unilaterally stripped of jurisdiction over disciplinary cases. The Office of Rules Administration created in December 2024 now has unilateral authority over discipline. This Office coordinates closely with Public Safety to utilize its surveillance information to pursue disciplinary cases against student workers. Under these new rules, campus demonstrations are limited to specific days and locations, providing administration more leverage to punish free speech. The new robust workplace surveillance system informs the patrol work of these officers now legally empowered to use force against our workers.

Our union’s concern about these changes stems from the rampant abuse of power within the offices that collect workplace surveillance data and initiate discipline cases. 

In 2023, the Columbia Spectator interviewed multiple Public Safety personnel anonymously who confirmed that PS officials were abusing surveillance tools. In particular, they allege that ex-cops in Public Safety threatened to initiate spurious and retaliatory employee discipline cases against Public Safety patrolmen using the surveillance information they collected. However, after the story broke, Columbia administration dodged accountability. David Greenberg and Senior VP Gerald Rosberg published a letter in the Spectator denying these claims and defending the professionalism of Public Safety. It is not lost on us that Greenberg also spearheaded the creation of Columbia's new police force with arrest power in Spring 2025. Vice President of Public Safety Gerald Lewis, who stepped down in Fall 2025, also denied the Spectator’s reporting in an email to Public Safety personnel. While Columbia had contracted two independent reviews of Public Safety’s operations from Teneo and Margolis Healy and Associates, they refused to share information about their findings. Columbia has provided us no evidence that they have reformed their practices yet now has more power to surveil and harm us than ever before. We demand bureaucratic transparency and accountability.  

In fact, abuse of surveillance tools has only increased in the past year and a half. Since Spring 2024, Public Safety officers have arbitrarily stopped and questioned affiliates on campus, requesting verification of affiliate status, scanning their IDs, and asking about their purpose for being on campus. This behavior from Public Safety officers constitutes harassment towards students, staff, and faculty who have already swiped onto campus and are being questioned arbitrarily. The University’s actions are excessive and arbitrary.

Since Spring 2024, Columbia Public Safety has continued to coordinate with local and federal law enforcement to harm our community and repress our political activity. On March 13th, 2025, 3 DHS agents in plainclothes were escorted into Yunseo Chung's residence by a Public Safety officer. Some of these agents also wore gaiters/hats, concealing their identities. When witnesses inquired about the agents, the Public Safety officer who had escorted them said, “I’m not even sure who they are.” When asked why the agents were admitted to the residence despite the Public Safety officer not knowing them, the officer backtracked stating, “We know who they are.”  Shortly after, acting president Katrina Armstrong sent an email on March 13th, 2025, at 11:50 pm stating that DHS agents were authorized to enter non-public areas of the University and conduct searches of two student rooms. 

Ranjani Srinivasan also reports that ICE agents were able to enter her dorm building to harass her about their immigration status without a warrant. On March 5th, 2025, Srinivasan was informed by the U.S Consulate in Chennai, India, that her visa had been revoked. On March 7th, 2025, while on a call with an ISSO staff member, Homeland Security agents knocked on the door of Srinivasan’s residence, identifying themselves as “police” and refusing to identify themselves out of concern for being “doxxed.” On March 8th, 2025, the agents returned to Srinivasan’s residence, which she had vacated the previous night. One of the agents stated: “We were here yesterday, we’re here today. We’re here tonight. Tomorrow. You’re probably scared. If you are, I get it. The reality is, your visa was revoked. You are now amenable to removal proceedings.” 

In March of 2025, Mahmoud Khalil was taken from his home in University Housing by DHS officers who did NOT have a valid warrant for his arrest. DHS lied, stating in their arrest report that they had an arrest warrant, but later admitted to the court that no such warrant existed and that they had lied to an immigration judge. DHS also made false claims about Khalil in order to justify his arrest, including that he was trying to flee–a claim that has been contradicted by the video Dr. Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s 8-months pregnant wife, took of Khalil cooperating with agents even when they refused to answer any questions.

In October of 2024, SOL (Student Organization of Latines), a student organization under ABC (Activities Board of Columbia), held a town hall with other Latine organizations to inform them of potential subpoenas from federal agencies (e.g. the FBI) as a result of the House of Representatives' investigation into antisemitism. SOL informed student organizations that they should disaffiliate from organizations with pro-Palestinian values and distance their clubs from events related to Palestinian human rights. This event caused significant anxiety and stress to student club leaders and also posed a threat to the health and safety of students from a psychological perspective. Leaders of student clubs were concerned about being subpoenaed and consulted with one another about how to handle the situation.

After Mahmoud Khalil was detained by DHS agents, several student clubs and undergraduate and non-undergraduate organizations coordinated a statement outlining their demands for the university to release Mahmoud Khalil. After posting these to their respective social media pages, several club leaders reported receiving phone calls from unknown numbers claiming to be federal agents or ICE, causing them immense distress. Acknowledging concerns about doxxing, these instances raise concerns that student affiliates' information is being shared with federal agencies or that these affiliates are being doxxed by individuals posing as federal agencies.

Last year, on May 7th, at the Basel el-Araj teach-in at Butler Library against Columbia’s continued support of genocide in Palestine, Public Safety peace officers barricaded all the doors of the library room, pushing students to ground who tried to leave and stepping on them. One of our student workers at the teach-in that day reported an officer choking her. Protestors noticed Public Safety officers pointing out students to personnel, directing them to attack the students. Public Safety officers also shoved students protesting in solidarity around the library and locked the library doors, delaying medical personnel from attending to those injured inside. As soon as Columbia administration gave Public Safety the power to arrest, they immediately used it to brutalize students and repress political activity. Public Safety has no transparent misconduct process, and student workers often encounter the same cops who brutalized their coworkers on campus. Public Safety has created a climate of fear on campus that is hardly conducive to us doing our jobs. 

In October 2025, UN Special Rapporteurs notified Columbia’s President Claire Shipman that her administration’s brutalization and political repression of noncitizens and protesters violated international human rights law. Columbia has yet to formally respond to this accusation. 

This Fall, Columbia Public Safety and HR worked together to repress student worker organizing on campus. We regularly table on campus with flyers about our union’s resources and events. Public Safety special patrol officers have repeatedly requested our organizers to stop distributing union literature, in spite of our insistence on our right to engage in such National Labor Relations Act-protected activity without fear of retaliation.

In October 2025, Public Safety threats escalated during our picket for a fair contract, protected by the NLRA. At this time, Columbia had been stalling bargaining for months by refusing to negotiate transparently in front of their workers in open bargaining session. Public Safety special patrol officers filmed us at the picket, and they told us that HR had requested we take our picket off campus. Again, we refused to move and asserted our rights under the NLRA. Our strong picket helped finally bring the University to bargaining table, but many picketers received disciplinary warning letters from the Office of the Rules Administrator, Gregory Warow, leveraging the new unilaterally adopted campus demonstration rules to union bust. In coalition with eight other campus groups, we held the Rally Against Repression to assert our right to protest on campus and Public Safety did not bother us. We continue to fight for the Rules Administrator to rescind the warning letters. 

Columbia administration increased Public Safety’s capacity to surveil  workers despite multiple incidents of their abuse of these tools. Giving the same people the power to use invasive workplace surveillance tools, discipline us, and use physical force against us creates a climate of intimidation and fear on campus that hampers our ability to teach and research freely. The demands in our contract, which we will bargain with Columbia over during our negotiation this spring, reflect our members' concerns about these changes. 

Fifty years of historical precedence for protection

Since the mid-twentieth century, unions have commonly bargained over the adoption of new technology in their workplace. This practice began in industrial manufacturing, where new tools could replace jobs and decrease work hours. Labor contracts in these industries stipulated that employers must provide ample notice of new technologies being introduced and enter into arbitration with unions over their adoption (2). In the 1970s and 1980s, workplaces adopted electronic record keeping systems for employee information like biographical data and hours worked. This technological advancement naturally provoked privacy concerns. By the end of the twentieth century, labor contracts across industries from service to manufacturing contained privacy protections like restricting how employee records are used in disciplinary proceedings, the right to access information employers collected, and restrictions on employer surveillance (3). US labor contracts have a longstanding commitment to providing workers transparent information and autonomy over technological workplace updates. 

Like many colleges, Columbia’s Office of Public Safety oversees employee surveillance tools and coordinates the dissemination of this info for employee discipline. This same office also polices our workplace and neighborhood, and the ex-cops that PS employs often use violent policing tactics or have documented histories of physical abuse while they were with the NYPD (4). PS also coordinates with local and federal law enforcement, helping NYPD, ICE, FBI, and other agencies to brutalize our workers and subject them to political repression. Public health scholars have recognized in the past ten years that this crime deterrence model, which employs violent and invasive tactics, is detrimental to short and long term physical and mental health (5). Increasing transparency around instances of misconduct, reducing police militarization creates safer and healthier communities. 

Thus, our contract article frames our demands through the lens of health and safety. During the 1970s, occupational safety protections in collective bargaining agreements developed alongside congressional bills passed like the Federal Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1970. Employers took responsibility for investing in resources to protect workers from hazards on the job and long term health complications, especially in manufacturing and construction industries. A 1976 Bureau of Labor Statistics study found that almost all collective bargaining agreements (93%) in effect at the time in manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors contained some type of employer commitment to uphold health and safety. A 1998 Monthly Labor Review survey confirmed that by the turn of the twenty-first century, health and safety provisions were present in a majority of private sector labor contracts. For our many lab workers, the Health and Safety article in our previous CBA protected them from such hazards, but many other workers remain underserved. Public Safety and law enforcement targeting poses an occupational hazard for our workers, especially those engaging in political advocacy or speaking out against University policies. Other student worker unions also hold that violent campus policing is a workplace hazard like TRU-UIE at Johns Hopkins, who settled on a contract in 2024 that included accountability provisions for campus police in their Health and Safety contract article. Our contract proposals seek to eliminate Public Safety’s power to harm our community and ameliorate the concerns Public Safety has repressed our workers for protesting against like Columbia’s investments in corporations breaking international law, the repression of noncitizens, and violations of our academic freedom. 

Our article suggests the Health and Safety Committee (HSC) to monitor the implementation of reforms, a commonly used bureaucratic mechanism across industries in the past fifty years. This committee will be staffed with Columbia administration, union, and Columbia University Senate members, indicative of SWC's commitment to working together with other co-governance bodies on campus. Like other HSC’s across industries, ours will receive reports from Columbia administration about Public Safety’s budget and surveillance capacity, allowing the HSC to investigate safety concerns. In the past year and a half, Columbia administration has unilaterally authorized police to enter campus and brutalize our workers. Our proposal ensures the HSC can be convened on an emergency basis so decisions affecting the safety of our community are made with input from all Columbia stakeholders (6). 

In the past 20 years, Public Safety has coordinated an unprecedented expansion of both human and technological surveillance at Columbia, and in the past year and half, these overreaches have only accelerated. Our union reserves the right to bargain over these changes to protect our workers. We follow the approaches of half a century of labor contracts and the recent graduate labor campaigns that have upheld workplace privacy, health, and safety in demanding our own protections. 

Case Studies

All of our demands are rooted in half a century of successful contract campaigns and NLRB findings. 

Johns Hopkins Teachers and Researchers United (TRU-UE Local 197) 

Johns Hopkins student workers are exceptionally vigilant about campus police abuses and workplace surveillance overreaches. In 2024, TRU-UE signed their first contract, which contained an article improving campus safety accountability, limiting workplace surveillance, and protecting student workers’ right to protest without being met by force. Similar to Columbia, their campus police force is also staffed with ex-cops. TRU-UE also frames their contract through the lens of health and safety and also tackles policing and surveillance holistically in the same article.  

In early 2025, workers discovered that Johns Hopkins had installed surveillance towers with cameras possessing AI analysis capabilities. This violated Johns Hopkins’ contractual obligation to notify the union about updates in workplace surveillance architecture. After publishing a petition against this overreach and marching on campus, JHU took down the towers. These provisions and their continued organizing against campus surveillance has inspired our own demands. 

UAW v. State Department 

UAW International in collaboration with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are campaigning against workplace surveillance. In October 2025, the unions filed a lawsuit against the State Department and Homeland Security to fight the Trump administration’s program to monitor noncitizens’ social media accounts with AI. UAW President Shawn Fain called this new invasion of privacy “a direct assault on the First Amendment.” Their lawsuit states that the Trump administration’s repression has caused noncitizens to fear signing onto union petitions, voting, and taking on visible roles. 

We are also bargaining on contract proposals on the use of AI in the workplace, upholding our academic freedom to teach and research freely, and protecting our international workers. Our parent union strongly supports us fighting for a workplace free from surveillance and repression. 

Office of the General Counsel Memorandum GC 23-02 (2022)

Then General Counsel of the NLRB Jennifer Abruzzo published a memorandum arguing that excessive workplace surveillance violated worker’s right under the National Labor Relations Act’s to engage in workplace unionization efforts without fear of retaliation. Specifically workplace surveillance violates Section 7 and Section 8.a.1 of the NLRA:

Section 7 protects our right to organize by stating, “employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment”

Section 8.a.1 declares that “to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7" is an unfair labor practice. 

Unfortunately, Acting General Counsel under the Trump administration William Cowen rescinded this memo and dozens others. However, the NLRB’s website still lists workplace surveillance against union activity as a violation of the NLRA. We hope that Columbia does not fall in line with the current conservative anti-labor regime but instead recognizes the decades of case law that Abruzzo cited supporting the legitimacy of our demands. 

NLRB Found that Surveillance of F.W. Woolworth Co. Workers Violated the NLRA (1993)

In 1993, Woolworth workers stood outside a store entrance and handed out literature to potential customers to discourage them from shopping at the store as part of a pressure campaign during a labor dispute. Woolworth management took photos and videos of these workers. Their union filed an unfair labor practice charge against Woolworth’s and the NLRB ruled in their favor. The board found that this surveillance intimidated workers from participating in union activity, which was a violation of Section 8.a.1 of the NLRA. 

More on the case here.

NLRB Found that Surveillance of National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) Workers Violated the NLRA (1997)

During a prolonged contract campaign, workers routinely gathered to picket and rally in front of the company gate. NASSCO’s chief of security placed a camera on top of a building to tape the rallies and another security personnel member covertly filmed the union members nearby. After a few months, NASSCO installed a permanent camera with audio-recording capability. The workers’ union filed an unfair labor practice charge against NASSCO for these invasions of their privacy

The Board instructed that NASSCO could not surveil workers merely because they anticipated misconduct to occur. The NLRB ordered NASSCO to stop video-taping or taking photos of protected activity and to destroy recordings that had been made. As for the permanent cameras installed, the NLRB also ruled that the installation’s unprecedented video and audio recording capabilities violated the NLRA. 

More on the case here.

NLRB Found that Social Media Surveillance of a AdvancePierre Foods, Inc.  (AP) Violated the NLRA (1997)

During a unionization effort by AP workers in Cincinnati, an AP labor relations person investigated a radio show segment that an organizer participated in to draw publicity to the campaign. Labor Relations noted who liked a Facebook post about the radio segment and researched their online presence, finding them to be a worker at the company who was organizing. Because the name on the Facebook account did not match the name the worker put on their employment documents, AP management asked them to verify their identity and immigration status. When the employee would not do so, she was suspended without pay. 

The NLRB ruled that AP’s surveillance of their employee’s Facebook account violated the NLRA because they were targeted due to their union involvement. The board explained that "[a]lthough carried out with more modern methods, this is no different than the 'curious' supervisor who, upon hearing that there would be union activity at a roadside park or a local tavern, takes a ride over there to see what he or she could see." The NLRB further found that her suspension was unlawful retaliation for union activity. 

More on the case here. 

Communications Workers of America and Pacific Bell, AT&T, and Nevada Bell Telephone Company (1986, 1995, 2013)

CWA and the telephone companies in the bargaining unit signed agreements in 1986, 1995, and 2013 committing to limiting management surveillance. When a supervisor wished to monitor an employee on customer service calls, the supervisor was required to notify the worker with “a visual indicator.” Unless a supervisor found evidence of fraud or severe abuse of a customer, an employee could not be “dismissed solely as a result of monitoring.” The number of monitored calls had to be limited to a specific number every month. In 2013, the telephone companies committed to destroying recording after a limited period of time. The union was also able to request transcripts of all audio recordings made. 

Contract: See pages 215-6, 217-221, 241-2

NBA and MLB Unions (2017)

Recent advancements in medical wearable devices have caused new privacy concerns for athletes. Management for sports teams have expressed desire for players to wear biometric monitoring devices to help prevent injuries and increase performance; however, many have expressed concern over players’ autonomy over their own medical data and the possibility this information could be licensed to third parties like sports betting companies. Consequently, the recent CBAs of the NBA and MLB both assert the unions’ right to have a say in the implementation of wearable devices collecting data on players. 

The MLB contract asserts that “any use of a wearable technology by a Player (including on-field, off-field and/or away from the ballpark) shall be wholly voluntary.” In addition, “there will be no consequence to a Player if he declines to use any wearable technology.” Teams must provide players a “written explanation of the technology being proposed,” and players are able to request a copy of all data collected on themselves. Players can also request this data be deleted. Their contract lists out the specific members of management who are able to have access to this information. Any wearable used by players also has to be approved first with input from a labor-management committee. 

While not as thorough as the MLB’s, NBA players’ union CBA also ensures protections for players' biometric data. Their contract also stipulates that devices collecting biometric data can only be voluntarily implemented by team members, and these technologies must first be approved by a union-management committee. NBA players’ biometric data also cannot be “considered, used, discussed or referenced for any purpose” such as in player contract negotiations. 

MLB contract: See page 334-6

NBA contract: See pages 359-61

West Virginia Teachers Unions 2018

Teachers in West Virginia have also bargained against the collection of biometric data in the workplace. In addition to winning historic raises, workers won data privacy protections in their 2018 wildcat strike. In their prior health insurance plan, workers were required to download an app that would track their steps, cholesterol, BMI, and other metrics and penalize them with higher costs if their data did not fit certain parameters. Under their new contract, they reversed the use of this app and the corresponding rises in healthcare costs it would have caused. 

See reporting in the Nation and the Guardian. 

UPS CBA with Teamsters (2018)

In 2018, the Teamsters CBA with UPS protected workers from surveillance data being the sole evidence used to discharge or issue a warning to a worker. Additionally, “a driver’s failure to accurately recall what is reflected by the technology shall not by itself be considered dishonesty.” The union also reserved the right to call union-management committee meetings to address allegations from workers that technology was being improperly used to discipline them. 

See contract: page 20. 

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and AFL-CIO Division 256 Amalgamated Transit Union (2019)

These workers have very precise regulations concerning when management is able to review CCTV footage, GPS, or other electronic surveillance and use this information in employee discipline cases. Management must first provide the evidence to the union before meeting with the employee over the alleged infraction. Surveillance data is only admissible as it pertains to the current infraction under review. A review of surveillance info can only be ordered whenever there is already suspicion that an infraction occurred. 

See contract: page 27-8

Office of the General Counsel Memorandum GC 23-02

In 2022, General Counsel of the NLRB Jennifer Abruzzo published a memorandum arguing that excessive workplace surveillance violated worker’s right under the National Labor Relations Act to engage in workplace unionization efforts without fear of retaliation (Section 8.a.1). While this memo was rescinded under the Trump administration, we hope that Columbia does not fall in line with the current conservative anti-labor regime but instead recognizes the decades of case law that Abruzzo cited supporting the legitimacy of our demands. 

Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA)

Passed in 1959, the LMRDA, requires employers to report expenditures on union-busting, surveillance, and any activity which would constitute an unfair labor practice to the federal government’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS). Columbia would also be required to file a report to the OLMS for contracting out other companies to do the same. Our workers have witnessed the University’s contracted Pinkertons and new police force intimidating organizing efforts, but these reports are nowhere to be found. 

Brown University Campus Police Records Transparency Lawsuit 

The lack of transparency pervasive in private campus police forces has become a more widely recognized issue in higher education. In 2025, after two journalists’ requests for arrest records were denied by the Brown police force, the ACLU supported their lawsuit, arguing that campus police should follow Rhode Island public records law. Only a few states (Connecticut, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia) require private police forces to follow the same standards of transparency about internal records as public forces. If Columbia Public Safety implemented a document request system, our institution would be ahead of the curve.