See below article for breaking news, and chart that shows a sampling of area colleges and their union status.

As part-time teachers at the New School continue their push to win a union, teaching assistants at Columbia University temporarily suspended their strike for union recognition.

On July 1, teachers at the New School rallied in front of their building, demanding that the administration recognize them as a union. Teachers are working with the UAW Region 9A to fight for a union.

In late February, a majority of teachers voted for a union in a mail-in ballot conducted by the NLRB. However, there were 87 ballots disputed by the university.

The university lost its appeal at the regional level and is currently appealing to the federal labor board in Washington.

The New School’s jazz faculty and teachers at the New School’s Guitar Study Center are already represented by Local 802. The UAW would represent the rest of the part-time faculty.

Meanwhile, after four weeks on strike, teaching assistants at Columbia voted to suspend their strike after they were contacted by City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and State Senate Minority Leader David Paterson.

Both officials asked the teachers to suspend their strike prior to Columbia’s graduation ceremony, and offered to mediate between their union and the Columbia administration to discuss union recognition.

The teaching assistants agreed to suspend the strike effective May 17, and not to picket graduation.

Columbia teaching assistants want to be represented by UAW Local 2110, which was the first union to successfully organize graduate employees at a private university — NYU.

UAW Local 2110 also represents workers at MoMA. When MoMA workers struck in 2000, many Local 802 musicians honored the picket line and refused to perform there.