NEW YORK, NY April 21, 2005 —Hundreds of people rallied in support of striking graduate, teaching and research assistants at Columbia University yesterday.

Graduate students at Columbia and Yale are demanding the schools recognize their unions, bringing them higher salaries and health care.

Universities are increasingly relying on grad students, but say their work is part of the learning process. James Haare is a teaching assistant in the religion department at Columbia.

HAARE: I dont' kow of any job, at least not any job I would want to have where you don't learn on the job. We do work. We get paid to do that work. That makes us workers. That makes us employees.

The graduate students say they often work between 25-30 hours a week for their schools, but are not paid a living wage or offered health care. They have been on strike since Monday.