NYU Grad Students on Strike

I haven't seen this mentioned in any of the forums yet, but NYU's graduate assistants and research assistants are currently on strike.

Bush's NLRB, reversing a previous (unanimous) decision, previously ruled that private universities did not have to recognize unions representing graduate students. NYU is arguing that these graduate students, whose stipend depends on teaching various undergraduate classes, are somehow not actually "employees." NYU President John Sexton (john.sexton@nyu.edu; office phone: 212.998.2345) is refusing to negotiate.

Here's a Newsday article:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--graduatestudentsu1130nov30,0,6980399.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/NYU_Action_clone

but graduate students are not employees. They teach and/or do research basically in exchange for tuition and a very small stipend. Most accept these terms going in, I know I did.

so that hardly precludes them being employees. At NYU, from what I understand, they teach and do research for tuition and a stipend in the range of 19,000.

The NYU administration has recognized the graduate employees union for several years, but this summer, as the current contract came up for renewal, they took advantage of the new NLRB ruling and refused to bargain or acknowledge the union.

Incidentally, the NLRB ruling doesn't yet affect public universities, which are still required to recognize unions.

I'm not sure of all the issues at stake in the NYU strike, but the primary focus of many grad student contract negotiations these days isn't the amount of the stipend, but rather such issues as health insurance.

Now, if those students paid their tuition, and under a separate arrangement were given a salary to do what they do--be it research or teaching undergrads--that's a different story. But otherwise, it seems pretty much a quid pro quo arrangement to me.

how it works in the NYU situation. Grad students are awarded tuition waivers by virtue of being students, and they receive a stipend based on their employment as teachers or researchers. Grad students who have outside fellowship funding don't have to teach or do research, but they still usually get most of their tuition paid for.

In the NYU case, if the grad students don't return to work by Dec. 5, they will lose their stipends, but they'll still get their tuition waivers, so clearly they aren't a package deal.

Our TAs and RAS work their asses off. Most go to classes, write their thesis, etc., and work for their professors up to 70 hours a week. They work for peanuts, and are NOT treated like employees, even though they are! What are they, if not employees? They aren't only students. It's like the musicians who died on the Titanic: they weren't considered employees of the steamship line, but they weren't passengers, either. So what happened? It was like they didn't exist: low pay, no benefits, and their survivors got zip. They were used by everyone, and appreciated by none. Just like most grad students.

Grad students help keep costs down, and a university (and professors' publishing) couldn't run without them. They deserve better.

SOLIDARITY!!!

many years ago, we threatened a strike. We made $4500 a year, were worked up to and beyond 120 hours a week, had no benefits and were called "students" (it worked out to be about 45 cents an hour). NYU knew we meant it and folded in about four hours. Our salary went up to $10,000 a year, the hours stayed the same. Same shit, different day....use students as cheap slave labor. If you want to know what gets the idealism out of doctors, try working like that for five to seven years of training.

That's my view on the whole thing. These graduate students have to pay dues to the United Auto Workers for representation and they will never collect pensions and most likely never collect strike benefits. I feel like the Graduate Students are being manipulated by UAW for the benefit of their union and not the students interest.

However, the university seems to have been handling this in the worst possible way, including "spying" on the striking students through their confidential forums.

I'm usually very pro-union, but NYU is in the right here. The courts have sided against private school unions and the real fight should have been to overturn that decision. Anyway, the quid-pro-quo deal the students received with the university was quite nice.

at least, when you're not accusing unions of exploiting grad students or siding with an administration that has suddenly refused to recognize a union it's been in contract with for the last three years. The "quid-pro-quo deal the students received" was a result of the previous contract negotiations.

NYU is in the right here? I hardly think so. They are, based on the NLRB decision (not the courts, afik), within their rights, but that's not the same as being IN the right. Of course, unions have opposed the NLRB decision, but conisdering our current president isn't exactly pro-union (and is responsible for installing the members who overturned the previous unanimous and bipartisan ruling) that isn't likely to happen during this administration. In the meantime, the grad student union tried to enter into contract negotiations as their contract expired--hardly a novel or radical move.

NYU President John Sexton threatens striking TAs with
blacklist

NYU President John Sexton sent the following letter to
striking TAs threatening a teaching blacklist against
those strikers who do not return to work by Monday Dec.
5th. The full text of the letter is below and the
threatening passages have been highlighted. (also
available on the NYU website: www.nyu.edu. This is
exactly the same sort of intimidating letter that the
Yale Administration sent to striking GESO members in
1995-6, which effectively broke that strike.

The TAs at NYU need your support now.

Email John Sexton and tell him to negotiate with GSOC:
john.sexton@nyu.edu - please bcc me at
jay.driskell@yale.edu, so that I can forward these
messages on to the teachers on the picket line.

In solidarity,
Jay Driskell
Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO)
Yale University.

Discussion Listserve <H-LABOR@H-NET.MSU.EDU>]
____________________________________________

Dear Graduate Assistants,

Your admission to NYU's graduate programs represents
recognition of your potential to be part of the next
generation of intellectual leaders, as men and women
who will fill the ranks of university faculty
throughout the world, as individuals who will lead
lives devoted to advanced inquiry. In providing you
with financial aid and the opportunities and
responsibilities of assistantships, we hope to help
prepare you for that life.

We recognize that for some of you there is an
unfortunate disparity between the ideal and the
reality. In some instances, assistantships have not
been structured to accomplish what we want: to enhance
professional development. There is always a delicate
balance between matching undergraduate curricular needs
with the academic and scholarly interests of those who
teach; in the case of GAs, we have not always achieved
that balance. While this is not true in every
department, it is true in some.

Our exchanges with one another have been shaped by this
reality and the mistrust engendered by it. We know we
must work to bridge the gulf that has developed, and to
align our realities with our ideals.

The recent announcement within Arts and Science
limiting assistantship responsibilities in languages
and literature departments to one stand alone course
per semester is a first step. We know we must take
others, but these academic decisions are best
determined by schools and departments.

The University will commit resources in support of
these efforts. Moving closer to this ideal, however,
will be difficult without restoring an atmosphere of
mutual respect and good faith within the University
community.

We appreciate that for some GAs a collectively
bargained contract, driven by a union, provides a
greater sense of security; for them the University's
August decision to move ahead without the union was
wrong. For them and others, the changes to the student
health plan and the errors surrounding Blackboard
created doubts about the University's good will, when
both of these issues could be understood quite
differently in an environment of mutual good faith.

For my part, I will not repeat the challenging history
that contributed to the University's decision to work
directly with our graduate students rather than through
the intermediary of a union. Suffice it to say that we
accept that, as we move forward, the burden is on the
University to create an environment of trust as we aim
to achieve the ideal.

To this end, we propose the following pathway: for all
current and incoming graduate assistants, the
University will offer written contracts based upon
their appointment letters. From our perspective, these
commitments already are binding; nonetheless, we will
proceed to document them in a manner that makes clear
to all that these contracts obligate the University and
are legally enforceable. These contracts will detail
the terms described last summer, including: .
$1000/year minimum increases in stipends for the
2005-06 academic year (already enacted), as well as
2006-07 and 2007-08, plus the publication each April of
the next three year's stipends;

. continued payment by the University of 100
percent of health care premiums for the
comprehensive student health insurance plan; and
full tuition remission.

But there is more work to be done, and much of it must
be driven by graduate students themselves. Since the
beginning of the fall semester, two groups of graduate
students have set to work on matters of importance to
graduate students generally, and graduate assistants in
particular.

The Graduate Student Working Group is crafting a
rights-and-responsibilities compact that will provide a
basis for defining the relationship between graduate
students and the University. The Working Group is also
formulating a permanent grievance procedure for
graduate students to replace the interim procedures
presently in place. Some members of the NYU community
have expressed concern about the fairness of a
grievance procedure that ends with the Provost, a
University official. While we must await the Working
Group's proposals, we are open to any suggestions they
may have regarding how members from the academy outside
the University might play a role in this process.

The Graduate Affairs Committee of the Student Senators
Council has also started to address economic and
benefit issues affecting graduate students in general
and GAs in particular. Again, we must see what this
group proposes; were it, however, to offer a new
mechanism that would enable graduate assistants elected
at the department level to act as representatives of
all GAs in annual discussions of stipend levels, health
care benefits, and other matters of importance, we
would embrace that as part of our university governance
procedures.

Lastly, I wish to talk about the strike.

Many GAs have continued teaching, others have taught at
off-campus locations, and still others have not been
teaching. I believe that those striking have been
acting out of conscience. Though I fervently disagree
with their decision not to teach, I do not think they
made this choice lightly. But however strongly felt a
graduate assistant's act of conscience may be, it
should not be pursued any longer at the expense of
undergraduates.

So far, those who have been on strike have been able to
act out of conscience without experiencing consequences
for their actions; instead, the burdens have fallen on
departments, faculty, and, in particular, our
undergraduates. Because graduate assistants are also
our students, those on strike have continued to receive
their stipends, they have continued to receive free
tuition, and they have continued to receive free health
insurance.

Their points have been made and heard. The time has
come for the University to insist that the academic
needs of its undergraduates be met. All of us should
share a deep commitment to meeting these needs. Those
undergraduates in classes affected by the strike are
understandably anxious about the disruption to their
studies. Such disruption must not continue. I thank
those who have been teaching, and I ask those who have
not to return to the classroom.

For those graduate assistants who resume teaching and
other assistantship assignments by Monday, December 5th
(or the first class meeting thereafter) at the assigned
times and places, and who fulfill all assigned
responsibilities for the remainder of the semester,
including grading, there will be no consequences.
These GAs will be eligible for teaching and other
assignments by the department for the spring semester.
This amnesty represents a balance between our respect
for the principled positions of those choosing to
strike and our obligation to undergraduates, who have a
right to complete their semester's work and experience
no disruption in their courses next semester.

Because we take both responsibilities seriously,
graduate assistants who do not resume their duties by
December 5 or the first scheduled teaching assignment
thereafter - while experiencing no consequences for
this semester - will for the spring semester lose their
stipend and their eligibility to teach.

For those graduate assistants who return by December
5th and accept a teaching assignment for the spring,
this acceptance comes with the commitment to meet their
responsibilities without interruption throughout the
spring semester.

Absences not approved by the dean will result in
suspension from assistantship assignments and loss of
stipend for the following two consecutive semesters.
Graduating students will be assessed comparably.

None of the striking graduate students will have their
ability to continue their own studies affected. In all
cases, their tuition and health benefits will remain in
place, and where the suspension of stipend would create
economic hardship, loans will be provided to students
upon their request.

For those who will be satisfied with nothing less than
a union, I know it will be a disappointment that the
University will not recognize GSOC/UAW as the
collective bargaining representatives of NYU's graduate
assistants. I nonetheless hope that we share a goal to
make graduate education at NYU better, even if we
differ about the vehicle for achieving this, and that
we can come together around this goal.

This has been a difficult and rancorous semester.
While I do not condone what has been done by those who
have been striking, their actions have caused us to
take a hard and unflinching look at ourselves and our
practices, and these self-examinations will lead to
significant, enduring improvements. I hope that in
this spirit we can work together to complete the
semester and rebuild the trust we need.

Sincerely,

John Sexton