Strike rumors have been swirling around Columbia College for months now. The school’s famously scrappy part-time faculty union—recently re-branded as CFAC (Columbia Faculty Union)—has been working without a contract since the last one expired in August 2017.
On October 23 CFAC member and part-time administrative employee Gita Kapila sent an email to the entire membership with this attention-getting subject line: “Full disclosure: the union is broke.”
Within a few weeks, Kapila and two other union members, Michele Hoffman and Carey Friedman, received Integrity Committee notices informing them that they’d been charged with causing harm to the union and summoning them to hearings. The charges were dated October 28, the hearings were scheduled for November 26, and they were told not to bring legal counsel.
Friedman, a screenwriter and playwright who’s been teaching at Columbia for 21 years, says his intention in raising questions “has been to return to rational negotiations and get a fair contract.” On October 22, he emailed the CFAC membership a list of five questions for the union: Is there a strike fund? How many members signed strike cards? Why hadn’t the union formally responded to the administration’s contract proposal? Why is the union rejecting a federal moderator? And, have we explored all options before striking?
All charging statements are written in first person, but none are signed. The membership of the Integrity Committee remains a mystery, and the accused question its legitimacy. The hearings for Hoffman and Friedman were supposedly held on November 26; not wishing to validate the proceedings, neither of them attended. At press time they hadn’t heard anything further from the Integrity Committee.
Kapila’s hearing has been rescheduled for December 7. She’s not planning to attend. v
