Since the graduate employee strikes at Columbia and Yale in the spring, which garnered national media attention, the academic labor movement has drifted back into media obscurity. Until now. Currently, GSOC (Graduate Student Organizing Committee) Local 2110/UAW at NYU is the only graduate employee union with a collectively bargained contract at a private university. That contract expires tomorrow, August 31st, and the NYU administration has refused to come to the table. Graduate unions across the country, recognized and unrecognized, at public and private universities, along with labor leaders, elected officials, faculty, staff, community members, and undergraduates, are mobilizing to defend the rights of GSOC Local 2110/UAW. Anyone in the area who cares about higher education and workers' rights should, if they can, come by and join the fight. Tomorrow, from noon to 1pm, we will be rallying at:
NYU Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South (West 4th St. & LaGuardia Place)
Come join us. If you can't make it, look below for how to write to the NYU administration.
History and details after the jump.
A bit of history:
Graduate employee unions have been around for over thirty years at public universities, and unionization campaigns are underway, despite legal and political obstacles, at an increasing number of private universities and public universities in states without legal collective bargaining rights. At NYU, graduate employees (teaching, research, and graduate assistants) began organizing in the late 90s. In March 2000, the National Labor Relations Board ruled unanimously that the TAs, RAs, and GAs at NYU were employees and had the right to form a union. Subsequently, GSOC bargained a four-year contract running from September 1, 2001 - August 31, 2005 (see What GSOC accomplished below for more details). Soon after the National Labor Relations Board ruled, graduate employee campaigns at other private universities, including Brown, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania, and Tufts filed for and held NLRB elections. The administrations at each of these universities appealed the respective regional NLRB decisions granting elections, and all ballots were impounded pending a ruling from the national board. In July 2004, the NLRB, which had changed in composition due to Bush administration appointments, ruled on the first of these appeals, declaring by a 3-2 majority (along partisan lines) that the teaching assistants at Brown University were not employees, and that the Brown administration could not be legally compelled to recognize their union. The decision in effect overturned the NYU precedent, and the ballots at Brown, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, and Tufts were never counted. Graduate employees at private universities, and at public universities facing similar legal obstacles, continue to organize and pressure their administrations to recognize their unions voluntarily, but needless to say, the Brown decision was a decided setback. The NYU administration is currently using the Brown decision as its rationale for refusing to bargain with GSOC.
What GSOC accomplished:
Before grads began organizing at NYU, stipends were approximately $10,000; in some schools, stipends were often half that amount. NYU did not provide or subsidize the costs of health insurance or child care. In response to GSOC's organizing drive, NYU began implementing some increases in pay, but it was not until GSOC won union recognition that they were able to bargain substantial, legally binding improvements in pay, benefits, and working conditions.
Under their contract:
- Minimum stipends increased by 38%, and are now $18,000.
- In departments where graduate assistants were paid above the minimum, GAs received a guaranteed 3.5% increase each year of the contract.
- NYU is required to pay the full premium cost for individual health care.
- Graduate assistants won fully paid tuition and fees, increased child care subsidies, paid sick leave, paid holidays, and paid training.
- Graduate assistants have access to transparent grievance procedures wherein work overloads, health and safety problems and other unfair situations can be addressed.
The big picture:
The battle at NYU is of critical importance to the academic labor movement as a whole. Not only does it represent a watershed moment for graduate employees at private universities, it exemplifies the rollback of workers' rights in the academy in general, and, should the administration succeed, could provide a precedent for public universities to begin looking for ways to avoid bargaining with their own graduate employees. This is a fight we need to win.
ACTION ALERT: Stop NYU's Attack on Workers and Their Union
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/NYUWorkers/step1.tcl