New York, April 26 (RHC)-- In the United States, graduate students at Columbia University have launched a week-long strike to demand the right to unionize.  Striking students say Columbia University has refused to bargain with the students, who voted more than a year and a half ago to unionize under the UAW, the United Auto Workers. 

The strike comes at the end of the spring semester, when the labor of graduate student teaching assistants and researchers is most essential to the functioning of the university.  It also comes only one day after the 50th anniversary of the launch of the historic nearly week-long occupation of five buildings, including the president’s office in Low Library, which inspired student protests across the country.