NYU Graduate Students on Strike

Hundreds of students, faculty, and other supporters rallied outside campus at noon today, demanding that President John Sexton and his administration begin to bargain in good faith. GSOC/UAWLocal 2110 members are graduate students working as teaching assistants and research assistants. Rally supporters included union activists from Yale, one of the first schools to fight for union representation for graduate students back in the 1980's in New Haven.

NYU graduate students ratified their initial contract in 2002, the first ever union contract at a private university. The contract resulted in a 40% pay raise and a health care package. The contact recently expired and - as with the CSU system - administrator have steadfastly refused to negotiate a new agreement. As soon as the contract expired, the students' health care package was terminated without warning or consultation and wage cuts are expected as a next step.

Activists are currently attempting to shut down as many classes as possible to gain leverage, and are reaching out to undergraduate students for support. In solidarity, union activists have received 600 faculty requests for classes to be moved off campus and have been able to accomodate half of these.

The Town Hall teach-in was held for hundreds of students in a packed, standing room only auditorium. Faculty and students presented their case eloguently. Undergraduate students asking intelligent, pointed questions about why a strike is necessary, why they should be involved in supporting this strike, and what rights and responsibilities are present to accomodate their classroom education while the strike proceeds. While unionists have been very outspoken about labor-busting, students demanded that activists move beyond the pitched rhetoric both sides have presented, and explain the situation more completely. Exapmles were given describing a nationwide assault on the quality of higher education and student rights.

The graduate schools at NYU have evolved from a working class instituion to a high-profile professional development institution in recent years, with tuition and fees rising 4 times over. Administration has spent millions of dollars on outside union-busting attorneys, launching a high-profile propaganda campaign. Arguments include that graduate students are students, not workers; unions work in public institutions, but not private ones; union demands are excessive and will cause undergraduate students' costs to rise. While they now argue that tenured faculty are the only faculty deserving of worker rights, in those negotiations the same union busting institutions have argued that tenured faculty are management and therefore not entitled to representation. Faculty pointed out that Presedent Sexton's salary is one if the highest in the nation.

Several undergraduate supporters explained the importance to teacher assistants to their education. The tenured faculty has been reduced significantly over the years as a cost cutting measure. In response, TA's have increased and teach larger classes. They are the most accessible for both academic assistance and personal support. Students have been pressured in may ways, pushed to either cross the picket line or to attend other similar classes not being picketed. TA's fear administratiors are planning to replace them with adjunct faculty with even lower compensation and no rights.

Speakers presented a climate of intense fear and intimidation on campus. Student grants and enrollment status are being threatened. Many campus contracts have prohibitions against sympathy strikes. One faculty cited an article in The Economist, praising NYU as an example of U.S. universities moving to a superior model of education led by "administrative control", compared to universities worldwide which continue to be "hampered by democracy".

Outrage has swet the campus following recent discovery by several professors of electronic surveillence of Blackboard class websites (electronic portals facilitating virtual learning and on-line class communication). Members of Faculty Democracy, have sent a letter signed by over 200 teacher members to President Sexton protesting this blatant assault on academic freedom, demanding to know on what authority these spying actions have been taken. Faculty described NYU as an "education in cynicism", with administration presiding over a monopoly of information, including denial of critical bargain information, daily propoganda filled with misleading information, along with the climate of fear and intimidation. These union-busting efforts are bolstered by poor rulings from the National Labor Relations Board.

Police at the rally outside were low-key and restrained, all activities were orderly and peaceful. The students and faculty at the Town Hall meeting presented as very intelligent and well organized.

The strike followed several steadily escalating efforts to bring NYU adminsitrators to the table. An August 31 rally culminated in a peaceful action of civil disobedience and arrest of AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, along with other labor leaders, elected officials, and dozens of graduate employees. Faculty members met unsuccessfully with president Sexton, urging him to negotiate in good faith in order to avoid the strike. The graduate students are working towards a total shutdown of all university classes on Wednesday, November 30th.