GSOC/Local 2110 UAW at NYU has voted to go on strike beginning next Wednesday, November 9th. Why should anyone care? Because GSOC is the first (and only) union of graduate employees at a private university to have won recognition and bargained a contract with its administration. GSOC's first contract expired at the end of August, and relying upon a 2004 NLRB decision that in effect stripped graduate employees at private universities of their legally recognized status
as employees, the NYU administration has refused to return to the bargaining table.
Late last summer, in protest of NYU's union-busting tactics, GSOC and its supporters organized an action at which a number of high-ranking officials from a number of internationals (UAW, UNITE-HERE, AFT) as well as AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, were arrested.
For background on graduate employee unions, a more complete summary of the situation, and an argument for why GSOC's struggle is so critical to the future of the academic labor movement, see my earlier diary, here.
AP story on the strike vote here.
Strike website here