it's unclear how long it'll take for the contract to be resolved but if other recent strikes at college campuses are any indication this might not come to an end quickly National Labor Statistics show for the decade prior to 2020 more than half of all strikes Nationwide involving at least a thousand workers lasted about seven days for more on just how long this could take I'm joined by William Herbert an expert on collective bargaining in higher education at the City University of New York William given the growing labor action at campuses you know across the country how long might we expect this strike to last well strikes can take uh the long strikes or short strikes it really is dependent on What's transpiring um in negotiations and what's transpiring on campus but we've seen strikes at the new school last year which lasted um multiple days we've also seen strikes that have lasted only a few days I think there's always going to be a question of what's transpiring now ad workers involving mediation we know the governor's involved and Governor's staff is involved that's positive and that could lead to a a a positive result for everyone uh sooner but at the same time mediation is not a guarantee of a final solution so it could be the strikes could could be uh take a longer period of time to resolve does having the pressure of the governor weighing in uh lead to perhaps a faster agreement or what type of factors need to be at play there to get to that place will the governor's the governor's office can play a very significant role and providing um an ability of the parties to reach an agreement uh through resolving issues and I think the uh the uh historically uh when Governors step in is more likely that there'll be a resolution and um there are issues that are uh some of these issues that are are involved at Rutgers are systemic issues involving austerity that need to be resolved and they also deal with questions of job security for the non-continued not the non-intendent track faculty does the fact that you have tenured professors uh non-tenured track professors graduate assistants this much larger pool of people all working together here in this strike play into just how long this could go on but I think it's it I think the fact that they have uh three different bargaining units together shows us the the scope of the issues that are involved but also shows that um the level of support among the various categories of employees recognizing their interests are are uh United um so that shows that there's going to there's a large degree of support another element is going to be the level of support you see on campus by students by members of the community by political figures that they weigh in and that could all provide for a greater degree of that that degree of support could lead to actually a quicker resolution with recognition that um the by the university and by the union that um it is better to resolve these issues once the uh demands are met through uh through mediation very quickly I'm thinking about the strike that happened with the University of California lasted well over a month is this the type of uh work action that we're going to see moving forward we know it's hit the education industry pretty hard in terms of these bargaining agreements but should we expect to see more of this well we've seen since the end of the pandemic we have seen a strike wave taking place in higher education it is all connected with what's been transpiring over time and now these strikes are are evident of the degree to which frustration has led to the necessity for uh for uh people on campus to engage in in the strike activity yeah finals are right around the corner uh William Herbert labor expert collective bargaining expert at the Hunter College at the City University of New York for us thank you so much [Music]