Nerds on Strike!

Updates on the Grievance Procedure

2007-02-02T12:44:00.000-05:00

The grad employees who filed a grievance last year in response to being fired by the administration in order to test the workings of the current NYU grievance procedure have received responses from the administration (you can read more about the grievance procedure etc in Nerds coverage from last March).

Below is a copy of the letter one grievant received. The highlights:

The letter claims that using the student disciplinary procedure would have resulted in expulsion and a permanent disciplinary record, therefore the fact that the university did not follow its own official disciplinary policies was an act of kindness. Of course, had the university followed its own disciplinary procedures, it is not at all clear that the grad employees would have been disciplined, as there were individuals sympathetic to the strike on the disciplinary committee.
The letter also admits that the grievants are correct in noting that their behavior does not seem to have violated anything in the student disciplinary procedure, further suggesting that the disciplinary procedure would not have resulted in any discipline.
While the letter does admit that not all striking teaching assistants were fired (unfortunately using the vague "several," which would suggest something like 3-5, when it was much more than that), the letter claims that no one could find any reason other than the desire to be sure that all fired workers were in fact not working for which workers were fired and which were not. Nevermind that the bulk of workers fired were in English and other fired workers were among the most vocal in the press.
Finally, the letter claims that the grievant herself did not accept her teaching assignment, and that this act of non-acceptance was "an appropriate action on the part of the University." This makes no sense. If the grievant chose not to accept her assignment, than it is not the University who took an action. If it is the University's action, than it is not the grievant who made the choice. The signatory on this letter is a psychology and neural science professor--you'd think he'd be more familiar with basic logic!

I am writing in response to your name being listed on a formal grievance submitted in August, 2006. As per the Interim Grievance Procedure for Graduate Assistants, a hearing was convened on December 1, 2006 and I have subsequently investigated and evaluated the positions taken in your grievance.

You argued that in responding to the agreed upon fact that you did not fulfill assignments that were part of your financial aid award, the University failed to abide by the prescribed School and University disciplinary procedures. The reasons that I have uncovered for the University’s decision not to use the student discipline procedure are as follows. Firstly, the School and University disciplinary procedures allow that students may be expelled from the University as a possible penalty action. In President Sexton's letter of November 28, 2005, he explicitly stated that no student "will have the ability to continue their own studies affected". Accordingly, the use of the student disciplinary procedure would have introduced unacceptable risks to the students. Secondly, and as was stated in your grievance, it was not at all clear that the behavior in question violated any of the proscriptions articulated in the disciplinary procedure. Finally, a disciplinary penalty would have resulted in a permanent disciplinary record. In all, it is my judgment that the use of the student disciplinary procedure would not have been appropriate.

It was also asserted in the grievance that the “process” that was used was not based on any other process prescribed in University or School rules and that the process used was not adequately communicated to the affected students. It is my finding that in the absence of a prescribed procedure for responding to a University-wide concern, responsibility falls to the President as the chief academic officer. Consistent with the fact that President Sexton was the sole signatory to his letter of November 28 that identified the proscribed behavior and its consequences, President Sexton has indeed taken full responsibility for structuring the procedure according to which the matter was handled. He has consulted with a group of high level administrators including academic deans as well as have consulted with a council of all Deans and Vice Presidents. The explanations of the procedure provided by President Sexton's November 28 letter and the subsequent letter from Vice Provost Frank Hoppensteadt, who represented the President and his consultation group to the students, have not omitted any important aspect of the procedure. As an alternative to the preexisting disciplinary procedure, the process implemented offered the same protections to the students as the disciplinary procedure, though the ordering of steps was somewhat different. As in the disciplinary process, the students were apprised of the possible administrative responses and the behavior that would produce them. As in the disciplinary procedure, the administrative actions were established by the proper authority, in this case, the President. And as in disciplinary procedure, students were given an opportunity through the grievance procedure to challenge any action involved. Additionally, the students were afforded an appeal of the finding in the case. Finally, students were informed about the authority, the proscribed behavior and the contingent University response well before any such behavior could have been committed. It does not appear that any protection offered by the disciplinary procedure was denied. The process was developed in accordance with proper University governance and was consistent with a standard of fairness provided by comparable preexisting process.

The grievance also challenged the implementation of President Sexton's procedure, claiming that the actions announced by Vice Provost Hoppensteadt were inconsistent with the principles laid down in President Sexton's letter. It is my finding that indeed the language of the Hoppensteadt letter in which the loss of stipend was reduced from two semesters to one was ambiguous. The letter states that because it was determined that you had not accepted your spring teaching assignment, that "the loss of one semester applies". On discussing this with Vice Provost Hoppensteadt, it became clear that the intention was to say that you would not receive your stipend for the spring semester because you had not accepted your assignment. While it is unfortunate that the letter did not more clearly articulate the reasoning behind this action, it seems on the face of it to have been a fair and reasonable response to your refusal to teach. You have further argued that withholding of the entire Spring semester's stipend on the basis of an initial failure to accept a teaching assignment, it must also be said that the unit of work in a University teaching environment is a semester, not a day. One could not fairly expect the University to deny instruction to the enrolled students until your return to your assignment.

Finally, you have argued that the actions taken were applied arbitrarily and that no such actions were taken against some who may have elected not to meet their teaching assignments. I have investigated this claim carefully and found a complex answer. On the one hand, there was some evidence that several more than twenty teaching assistants had absented themselves at least once from their Spring assignments. On the other hand, it became clear that the University insisted upon a high level of confidence in its determination of which students were, in fact, fully withholding their participation as teachers. In general, the complaints from enrolled students, their parents, and classroom checks by university staff were most readily confirmed for students teaching "stand-alone" sections. Further, stand-alone sections were not uniformly distributed across departments and, thus, the students whose stipends were withheld were also not uniformly distributed across departments. I can find no evidence that the department itself or any other factor unrelated to compliance with teaching assignments played a role in the identification of students to receive administrative action.

In sum, it was my finding that the procedure on which the grieved action against you was taken was administratively appropriate and reasonable. That you did not accept a teaching assignment for the Spring semester of 2006 is, given the semester based calendar of the University, an appropriate action on the part of the University. Accordingly, I can find no basis for your grievance and it is denied.

Sincerely,

T. James Matthews
Vice Dean, GSAS
Professor of Psychology and Neural Science

News Updates

2006-12-28T22:13:00.000-05:00

Nerds, incidentally, are on winter break, which is why there is not much happening on the blog. But here are some news updates:

Local 94 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, the union representing maintenance staff in commercial buildings, has a contract which will expire on December 31st. They held a rally today in Midtown to call for a new contract--what they are asking for is a benefits package that does not require them to dig into their own pockets to fund their health care and pensions. The degree of organization and solidarity in this union are inspirational.

Citylimits.org announced that Governor-Elect Spitzer's appointee for Labor Commissioner, Patricia Smith, will step up enforcement against companies that take advantage of low-wage workers.

The Villager announced that Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has convened a task force on NYU issues that will have its first meeting in January. Development and community facilities issues top the list of items for discussion.

And the New York Times reports that NYU's fundraising campaigns involve Big Brother-like data collection tactics, as well as -- surprise -- Sexton's hugs.

Production Assistants' Rally

2006-12-13T22:54:00.000-05:00

Support Parking Production Assistants and Coordinators Right to Unionize!

Thursday, December 14, 2006 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM
NBC-Universal, 30 Rockefeller Center
(West 50th Street and 6th Avenue, Manhattan)

Parking Production Assistants (PAs) and Coordinators work in the film, television and commercial production industries in New York City. There are over 300 workers and their jobs are to clear out and hold parking space at least 12 hours in advance of a location shoot to allow production equipment to be trucked in.

These workers are working on major productions in New York City, currently including 13 major prime time television and cable series programs, and over a dozen feature films and numerous commercial production jobs. One of the largest producers in New York City is NBC-Universal, which produces the "Law and Order" shows and the new hit
TV show "30 Rock" as well as other TV shows and movies. The production companies benefit from publicly funded tax breaks; they should repay our community for that benefit by recognizing the rights of their workers to unionize.

These workers are predominantly people of color – Caribbean, African-American, Latino, and Asian. A super majority have signed union cards to join the UAW and want a union and a union contract to improve their standard of living and working conditions such as those listed below:

1) Respect - Despite providing an important service to the industry, these workers are treated as an invisible workforce because they are workers of color. Many have said that they have experienced a long history of exclusion.

2) Low pay - Parking PAs get paid an average of $115 to $125 for a 12-hour shift. In order for these workers to make a living, they have to work many shifts. Some work in excess of 100 hours during the week.

3) Limited or no benefits - Workers, except a small handful, do not receive health insurance. There are no retiree benefits.

4) Raise the Level of Their Profession - PAs and Coordinators want to be better ambassadors for the industry through training and certification. They also want to help establish community standards in how production companies approach neighborhoods to improve traffic patterns and parking schemes.

5) Dangerous Working Conditions - Workers are regularly yelled at and sometimes physically harmed by community members upset about the inconveniences created by on-location shooting by production companies.

6) Basic Human Needs - In almost all cases, overnight bathroom facilities are not provided.

7) Job Security - Like other union members in these industries, these UAW members want job security by establishing industry standards for their services through an enforceable union contract.

For more information call Ted Feng at 212-529-2580

House of Delegates Results

2006-12-13T21:12:00.000-05:00

So here we are, the results of the House of Delegates elections. The election results are actually far to long to post in the blog, as there are 50 Delegates. However, the key thing is that GSOC candidates won 37 of 50 seats, including all four at-large seats, all 26 seats in GSAS, the one seat in the institute of fine arts, and seats in Steinhardt School of Education, the Courant Institute of Mathematics, and Tisch School of the Arts. Among the seats that we did not win were those for which we did not have candidates--the dental school, the public service school, and the M.D./Ph.D. program. In none of these three schools did any candidate earn even 10 votes--showing that not only did GSOC dominate the polls, GSOC members are the ones who actually care about making this university a better place.

While We Wait, News Updates...

2006-12-11T20:00:00.000-05:00

While we wait for the prom committee to finish tallying the votes for House of Delegates, the NYU administration uses its own fake union proposal to earn a Carnegie Commission classification as a "community-engagement university." Of course, the prom committee also claimed that the high turnout (due, of course, to GSOC's get-out-the-vote effort) proves that this structure is innovative and great. There is something to the claim of community engagement, however, as NYU students join community members to protest against the proposed "renovations" of Washington Square Park, renovations that include fencing the park in.

Meanwhile, NYU undergraduate claim that the university is biased against conservatives because their professors won't let them cite Fox News as a source of empirical evidence. Also, NYU is currently exploring plans to cut down trees on Mercer Street on city property to expand its underground co-generation plant--a move which would seem to be in some conflict with NYU's claim that it is good and green now that it spends so much on wind power.

Finally, those interested in the Colbert Report incident might want to know that Sexton did, in fact, hug Stephen Colbert--he just sneakily did so when the cameras were not running. In fact, the whole interview was originally supposed to be about Sexton's course "Baseball as a Road to G-d," but somehow that interview (which would have been much more interesting) got canned in favor of Sexton's blathering about "learning." Incidentally, the course description for Sexton's baseball course displays a curious ethnocentrism by continuing to tag Baseball as an entirely American pastime, ignoring the fact that its popularity may in fact be greater in Japan, the Dominican Republic, and other nations.

Sexton on the Colbert Report

2006-12-07T20:46:00.000-05:00

Last night, NYU president John Sexton was a guest on the Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Before each taping, Stephen Colbert warns his audience that he plays a character and that character is an asshole. Unfortunately, as was revealed on the show, Sexton does not play a character. Instead, he always talks too much, thinks he knows everything, and can't take a joke. I mean, come on, you don't go on someone else's show and make fun of the host, and you don't argue with a straw man. In addition, Sexton used the occasion to promote his new casebook rather than to promote NYU--and the ultimate job of all university presidents is to promote and fund raise for their institutions.

UPDATE: To see the interview, go to the Colbert Report archives.

House of Delegates Elections

2006-12-04T22:19:00.000-05:00

This week, NYU graduate students vote for representatives to the House of Delegates. Nerds can't come up with a clever name for it, unfortunately--but we'll take suggestions. At least 35 candidates have officially declared their support for GSOC as part of their candidacy. Voting takes place all week; for a list of those candidates who officially support GSOC, email GSOC.

And an event listing:
This Friday, December 8th, workers at the Restaurant Daniel and the Fireman Hospitality Group mount a Justice Ride to protest segregated workplaces and to support their legal claims of discrimination. The Restaurant Workers Justice Ride will begin at Cafe Fiorello at 64th and Broadway at 5:30 and will end with a rally from 6:30 to 7:30 at Restaurant Daniel at 65th and Park Avenue. To participate, call (212) 343-1771 or just show up and see if space is available.

And one more thing...

2006-11-30T17:18:00.000-05:00

Goodyear tire workers are out on strike. Sign an online petition in support of the workers. And if you are in New York City this Friday, December 1st, join the workers as they protest against NASCAR outside of an awards dinner (Goodyear is the sole suppliers of tires for NASCAR).

Friday, December 1st, 5-7 PM
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets
Manhattan

World Labor Updates

2006-11-30T09:06:00.000-05:00

The New York Times reports that students and campus workers at Vanderbilt are demanding a living wage for the housekeepers, maintenance workers, and food services staff. While workers live in poverty and some become homeless, the university spend $6 million renovating the Chancellor's house.

At Purdue University, students have entered a hunger strike to protest the University's purchases of licensed products manufactured using sweatshop labor.

An appeals court has ruled that George Washington University adjuncts can unionize with SEIU. Both the court and the NLRB found that GWU had no valid claims against bargaining with the union.

And in Israel, a general strike has closed most of the public sector to protest unpaid wages and unfunded pensions.

Meanwhile, on campus, Sexton received a cut in his salary this year of 11%, dropping to the 10th highest paid university president. The Washington Square News makes the connection between this pay cut and Sexton's lies to GSOC.

On Child Care

2006-11-27T17:00:00.000-05:00

Need something to read? The AAUP has started a blog enabling readers to comment on articles in Academe. And the PSC-CUNY Clarion for December has a great article about holiday shopping from unionized stores and manufacturers. The article also discusses the brand-new American Association of Pizza Delivery Drivers in Pensacola, FL. These drivers are fighting to be paid minimum wage and to be fully reimbursed for their gasoline expenses. If they can do it, while working two jobs and facing union-busting from a huge national corporation, so can others.

Incidentally, NYU has reserved $750,000 per year (scroll to the bottom after clicking on the link) to help administrators and faculty with the cost of child care. This is absolutely great. It is, however, another example of the ways that life inside NYU is economically unequal. NYU administrators and faculty are, in general, well-paid. Finding and paying for child care may not be easy (this is New York, after all, and NYU faculty do work long hours to conduct the research they need for tenure). But faculty and administrators are much more able to do so than staff and graduate employees. Yet staff can only receive child care subsidies by filling out an application to prove financial need, and the relevant income limitations are not publicly available.

For grad employees, the maximum subsidy is $200 a semester, and even this may be taxable, especially for international students. Assuming a super-cheap rate of $10 an hour: this means grad employees receive one week of part-time child care each semester. Sure, you can raise a child with that.

Justice for Janitors? Yes, but only after hoofprints.

2006-11-21T07:53:00.000-05:00

Justice for Janitors in Houston has just won a contract for 5,300 workers that will more than double their incomes and provide health care. As part of the strike that won them this contract, non-violent strikers were trampled by horses and arrested and held at over $800,000 bail each (the bail was eventually reduced by a magistrate judge to a more-reasonable $1,000 per striker, though even that sum is very expensive for impoverished minimum-wage workers).

The labor movement is creating the lasting images of struggle and triumph for our generation. We working people will continue to stand up and demand equality, justice, and fair treatment. And we will get it.

If only someone could unionize the horses--then they would refuse to trample strikers.

News Updates

2006-11-18T19:11:00.000-05:00

Nerds apologize for their long absence. Their life sometimes does include things other than GSOC. They will try not to let it happen again.

So on for some news updates:

More details on the House of Delegates are available. Among the more objectionable:
--While seats are partitioned among NYU's graduate schools, GSAS will be limited to a maximum of 26 to ensure that it can not be a majority. While law school and medical school students are not part of the electorate, MD/PhD students at Sackler are included, though they do not work for their fellowship money at any time while in graduate school.
--The HoD will not have any binding power, only an advisory role.
--Calls from the existing Graduate Student Council for the electorate to vote on the structure prior to electing members have gone ignored, while Sexton calls this body "pioneering."
--There are few safeguards to protect against vote tampering.

At least the national and NY state elections were good. Nerds know that a Democratic Congress and a Democratic NY governor will provide more political pressure on Sexton and the NYU administration to negotiate with GSOC.

Other news about the bad behavior of NYU:
--Work-study students are having their hours cut, limiting their ability to pay their tuition. The next battleground after graduate employee unionization? Unionization for undergraduate workers. (Readers should note that apparently work-study students are prohibited from talking to the Washington Square News. Now that is a repressive work regime, and it just shows how NYU treats its workers when they don't have union protection).

--NYU owns 9.3 million square feet of real estate (60 buildings) in NYC, of which 25 buildings were purchased since the 1980s--and these numbers do not include the medical and dental schools. All this NYU real estate is tax-free, depriving the city of needed money, and yet it still does not relieve the pressure of gentrification caused by students renting area apartments.

Democracy?

2006-11-03T00:39:00.000-05:00

The Washington Square News reports that the GAC puppet government has officially been formed (though word about who is in it is not yet available). This structure claims to be democratic because it is electoral, but electoral positions will be distributed "equally of student representatives from each graduate school, department, and program"--meaning that those students who never have to work a day in their graduate student lives could be the ones making whatever puny decisions they are permitted to make about the lives of those of us who have to work for our pay.

But that's not the scariest part. The scariest part is that the WSN article notes that the GAC is a revolutionary force--ostensibly, because GAC representatives will "be able to speak directly with university officials." Um, university officials have office hours. And telephones. And make meetings. People already talk to them directly--people like the fired strikers from last year whose grievance still is not being heard. People like the Chemistry GAs who took matters into their own hands. That's what power is? That's what democracy is? Being able to "speak to officials?" Sounds like fascism to me.

While we are on the subject of democracy: this Tuesday, November 7th, is Election Day. Be sure to get out and vote--and our union, the UAW, has a website with a list of candidates they have endorsed in local and state races nationwide. These candidates have been chosen because of their records supporting the needs and rights of working people. They are the people we need as we face the most repressive climate for labor in years.

News Roundup

2006-11-01T11:59:00.000-05:00

Faculty at Evergreen State College in Washington State have voted to form a union that includes both full-time and part-time employees.

In Kenya, a faculty strike has shut down 5 of the 6 public universities (coverage is in The Chronicle of Higher Education; subscription required).

Finally, the GSOC Journal reported yesterday that the Chemistry action last month has paid off, with about 100 grad employees finally getting their expected pay instead of having to wait for May to receive it. Chemistry GAs say that this shows the power of collective action to resolve problems--and that, after all, is why we need a second contract.

News Coverage in Union Publications

2006-10-29T12:17:00.000-05:00

From New York Academe's Fall issue, the publication of the New York chapter of the AAUP (while Nerds just received this recently, it is clear it is slightly out-of-date, or maybe not based on the best reporting and editing):

The NYU Graduate Student Strike Update: Press States the Strike is Over

Press reports indicate that the strike by graduate student teaching assistants opposed to New York University's decision not to negotiate a new contract with their union has come to an end without the completion of a new collective bargaining agreement.

The student members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, who had been affiliated with Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers, struck on November 9, 2005.
The University, which had recognized the union in 2002, decided during the summer of 2005 not to negotiate a new contract after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had reversed an earlier decision and held that teaching assistants at private universities were not employees under the National Labor Relations Act.

While the strike has not officially been terminated (there is no mention of the strike's current status on the union website), the Washington Square News reported that virtually all teaching assistants, including the leaders of the strike, are teaching this semester.

The graduate students have been supported by a number of NYU faculty, many of whom formed a group called Faculty Democracy, which has developed a broad agenday that includes a broader role for faculty in university governance and prioroties.
Support also came from many local politicians and union leaders. AAUP President Cary Nelson and Jane Buck, his immediate predecessor, were both arrested as part of a protest supporting the striking students.

While the strike has ended, efforts to pressure the NYU administration hto recognize the union have not. Graduate Student Organizing Committee head, Michael Palm, in an interview with insidehighered.com, said that, "We don't know exactly what our next move will be yet...But it's clear that the UAW is here to stay."

For more on the strike, go to the Union's website: www.2110uaw.org. or Faculty Democracy's website: www.facultydemocracy.org.

The October 2006 issue of The Clarion, the newspaper of PSC-CUNY, also has an article on the end of the strike--but that one is much better. It focuses on the role of retaliation, the successes we had in the petition campaign in the spring, and the tactical decision-making process.

News Updates

2006-10-23T10:18:00.000-04:00

The Liberacion Radio Collective at the University of Illinois has produced a radio show about the GSOC struggle. At the site for the show, you can also see video of a rally they held in support of GSOC.

Faculty at Hartnell Community College in Salinas, California are striking, which they say is the first strike of California community college faculty in a quarter century. (An update on the strike is available in Tuesday's Insidehighered.com.)

News from the American Federation of Teachers

2006-10-13T14:34:00.000-04:00

The October 2006 issue of AFT On Campus, the monthly publication of the American Federation of Teachers higher education division, just came out. It carries three stories about graduate student unionism:

A story of the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions conference this August notes that the Coalition passed a reolution pleding to support GSOC.
Temple University's Graduate Student Association has secured a second contract. Provisions include an average of 3% for annual raises, year-round health coverage with a choice of two health plans, better greivance procedures for workload issues, an agency-fee clause that kicks in if the union maintains at least 70% membership, and a plan to investigate child-care options.
At the University of Illinois, where the Graduate Employees Union has been working without a contract for a few months, the union placed ads on billboards around campus just in time for the beginning of the academic year that point out that 30% of UI classes are taught by grad assistants. The university has announced that wages will be frozen until a contract deal is in place in a move designed to discourage grad employees from seeking a better health care deal (only 25% of premium costs are paid).

In other news, The Chronicle of Higher Education has a big article about the strike and union strategy in this week's issue. This link will work for five days from today.

NYU's "Community Facilities?"

2006-10-07T21:35:00.000-04:00

After the crane incident on 13th street and 3rd ave last week, elderly residents evacuated from nearby buildings sought shelter in the NYU dorm on 11th and 3rd. NYU security called the police to remove them, leaving them with only the option of walking to 17th street for shelter until 2 am. NYU receives allowances excusing it from various zoning and tax requirements because its dorms are considered community facilities. How can something be a community facility if elderly people are not even allowed to sit in the lobby after being evacuated from their homes? (Incidently, not a single NYU facility has been made accessable to the public during OpenHouseNewYork, a weekend allowing the public to see the insides of architecturally and historically significant buildings, even though NYU owns such significant buildings as the former Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and the houses on Washington Mews. Again, not community facilities.)

Nerds intend to write a post about the most recent union-busting NLRB decision whey they have a bit more time.

Fall Town Hall Meeting

2006-10-03T14:36:00.000-04:00

So as to appear accessible and approachable, Sexton hosts at least one Town Hall meeting open to all students (graduate and undergraduate) each semester. The first Town Hall meeting of 2006-2007 was held last week. For coverage of the general issues discussed, see the Washington Square News article on the meeting.

The first interesting thing to note about this meeting is that Sexton and his student puppet government revised the format of the meeting so that attendees' questions would have to be pre-screened. Only after GSOC members objected were attendees even allowed to read their own questions at the microphone!

The second interesting thing to note is that when asked what the priorities for student government at NYU should be this year, Sexton's responses were not focused on any of the many problems internal to NYU (whether graduate employee working conditions, the financial difficulties facing undergraduates, improving academic integrety, or anything else germane to an academic institution). Instead, he avoided the question by listing his personal favorite global issues, like poverty and global warming. Now, Nerds are all for taking action against poverty and global warming, but aside from reducing the poverty of NYU students and using fewer fossil fuels on campus, there is not much the student council can do about these things.

And the third interesting thing to note is that someone finally asked Sexton why he goes around hugging people without their permission. Sexton had the audacity to claim that he does not ever hug people without their permission--when many people in the room had been so hugged! Nerds wonder why Sexton's high-priced lawyers have not told him that hugging people without their permission (or even with it, if that permission has been coerced by the power of the presidency) could constitute sexual harassment.

The Washington Square News continued its coverage of the Town Hall meeting with an editorial today suggesting that while the new format attempted at this Town Hall was inappropriate, something needs to be done to prevent "unfair manipulation by groups like GSOC." Nerds just want to take this moment to inform the unnamed authors of this editorial that GSOC members who attend Town Hall meetings attend as individual graduate students at NYU. We ask our questions as individuals. We do not have some fancy cabal prior to the meeting where we decide which questions to ask, who should ask them, and how to prevent anyone else from saying anything. In fact, at some Town Halls, there have been fewer than 10 people in attendance who are not GSOC members (including the WSN reporter!). In actuality, what is going on is that GSOC members are the people who care the most about the future of our university, the people who choose to make the time to show up and to work for a better environment for all of us.

Labor Rights Around the Academy

2006-09-28T09:20:00.000-04:00

Rick Berry, a past president of the National Institute of Government Purchasing, claims that there is a new trend to "in-source" Janitorial staff at colleges and universities. Finally, a movement that will increase the labor rights and benefits for some higher education employees! At Florida International University, one institution who recently made such a change, wages and benefits will increase by over $10,000 a year and workers will gain union representation by AFSCME. At Brandeis, pay has increased more than $3 an hour and benefits have also been improved as part of the move to direct hiring, and this group of workers is represented by an SEIU local. And the work continues on college and university campuses across the country. It's inspiring to see the successes that these workers (and the student groups with whom they work in coalition) have had recently.

More Rip-Offs

2006-09-26T16:18:00.000-04:00

For those who don't follow the medical news, the FDA finally approved a vaccine for the prevention of HPV and cervical cancer over the summer. In more bad news for health care at NYU, while the health center does offer the vaccine, it is not covered by health insurance and runs a total of $456 at the Student Health Center. How are students (whether grad employees, undergrads, or professional students) supposed to afford to protect themselves against cancer?

In other news, the Wall Street Journal published an article today on city minimum wage laws. The article is really a debate between two economists, and the one opposed to city minimum wage laws provides a nice glimpse into the type of argument that suggests workers are better off making less money. But what this article really points out, which is not at all covered in the article (seeing as the commentators are economists rather than sociologists) is the fact that the limitations to citywide minimum wage laws occur because they are limited to the borders of cities. If the national minimum wage was increased to $10, WalMart couldn't just pull up and move to the suburbs; it would be forced to pay the wage to stay in business. That's why the labor movement needs to focus on national struggles rather than only local ones.

A New Year, a New Dedication

2006-09-22T11:30:00.000-04:00

Tonight marks the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. During the ten days following Rosh Hashanah (which end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement), Jews go to those whom they have wronged in the past year and ask for forgiveness. This time offers the opportunity to reassess one's life and make choices about the person that one wants to be in the next year. Let us, then, take this moment to be honest about our shortcomings, but then move forward and rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of justice for all people, including ourselves.

An anonymous poster wrote a comment this morning in response to the last post which I think is really worth engaging with. This poster highlighted one of the difficulties with organizing academic labor. I am not going to quote the whole comment here, as interested readers can just click on this link, but it ends by saying "We [academics] are accustomed to judging an argument on its evidence rather than its polemics."

I agree wholeheartedly that the answers to empirical questions ought to be determined by evidence (as in most academic disciplines) rather than by rhetoric (as in law and politics). However, union organizing (as other forms of collective behavior) are not really empirical questions. What I mean is that the likely outcome of collective action is determined in large part by how many people are mobilized to participate and how strong their committment to the cause is. If each person needs to be convinced individually that the movement will succeed, we end up in what rational choice theorists call a collective action problem, where all actors assume that their participation will not make a difference.

That may in fact be true. But everyone's participation will make a difference. And you can not necesarily provide evidence of this, because it is something that has not happened yet. Rather, people who join the labor movement do so because they beleive in it: because they are ideologically committed to worker's rights, because they are fed up with the crappy treatment they receive from management, because they and their friends and coworkers are in this together. You can make an empirical argument about the benefits that unions bring. You can make an empirical argument about whether organizing campaigns can succeed without NLRB protections (which they can and do: look at private universities that still have unions after the Yeshiva decision, or read Dan Clawson's The Next Upsurge. But you can't make an empirical argument about the future of this campaign or the future of the labor movement as a whole.

Why? Because we simply don't know what's going to happen yet.

So join us. Don't be a collective action problem. Make the world a better place for workers. And have a sweet new year. L'shana tova.

Strike Vs. Campaign

2006-09-20T20:34:00.000-04:00

The Washington Square News published an article today that attempts to be a post-mortem on the strike. But the article makes a big mistake: it confuses the lack of success of last year's strike for the failure of the entire campaign.

This makes no sense. The campaign is an ongoing, in fact growing in strength as more and more people become active and involved. We've gotten continual support from the UAW and we've gotten signatures on our Congressional sign-on letter. We're mobilizing for another year, a year in which we will have greater impacts, create more disruption, and hopefully win our second contract.

Furthermore, as any student of social movements or labor history will know, the fact that one campaign ends without acheiving all its goals does not mean the movement has failed. Rather, we have made a difference in the lives of some graduate employees at NYU (like those in languages who saw their teaching loads cut) and elsewhere (at the many campuses which increased benefits or negotiated better contracts to avoid entering into a quagmire like the one we created). We learned lessons for ourselves to make our campaign stronger this year, and we taught lessons to the UAW, UNITE-HERE, and other unions about the strategies and tactics to use (and not to use) when conducting union campaigns for non-traditional union members. We developed solidarity across campus that keeps us strong today.

And the article leaves a big gap in its journalistic objectivity by not taking on Tony Judt's comments. While it may be true that the UAW has sought out workers beyond its historical automaking contingency because of the shrinkage of the auto industry, that can not explain their continued devotion of resources and energies to our campaign. See, when unions are recognized by the employer, members pay dues to the union, and these dues are automatically deducted from their paychecks (yes, that's right, all us GSOCers contributed a few of our meager dollars to the union with every paycheck). The national UAW got a small percentage of those dollars. But when a union is not recognized by the employer, the national UAW no longer receives that money. In other words, at the present time, the UAW is spending money on our campaign rather than making money from us. I don't care how desperate a national union was; it would not spend money on a fight it didn't beleive in. Judt, I suppose, has not kept up on the futre of the labor movement, a future filled with knowledge and service workers like us.

Chemists Unite!

2006-09-17T12:14:00.000-04:00

Every semester here at NYU begins with a significant number of problems with getting our paychecks. These problems include delayed paychecks, entirely missing paychecks, and paychecks for the wrong amount. Because of the history of such problems, our union contract contained a rare clause specifically requiring the University to pay us appropriately and on-time. Despite this fact, we filed greivances every year to get our pay (greivances that lead the administration to claim we filed to many greivances), and NYU lost every one and usually was forced to turn over money quickly.

This year, of course, we have no such recourse. And yet graduate student employees from a wide variety of departments have begun the year without receiving their first paychecks, which were to have been distributed this week or earlier depending on the employees' work schedules.

The most glaring offense has been in the Chemistry department, where workers ordinarily receive their first paycheck in the first week of the year because they have been working in August (unlike those in many other departments). This year, Chemistry GAs did not receive their checks. Instead, they received an email announcing that the pay they were due in this first paycheck, pay they needed for rent, food, medical expenses, and textbooks, would be divded up and provided bit by bit over the rest of their paychecks for the year. In other words, some of the pay due to the chemists in September would not be available until May, giving NYU the opportunity to earn high interest rates on other people's money.

The chemists were angry. And so they marched on the GSAS administration offices and presented a quite reasonable demand: that their pay be restored by the beginning of October, at the latest. Even that date would create considerable hardship for many GAs, including those international students who the university forces to enroll in additional ESL classes without providing tuition remission (while native English speakers who take second languages can do so for free). The chemists GSAS Associate Dean David Slocum that they were not willing to wait and take their chances with the "interm greivance procedure," as other GSOC members have been winding their way through the procedure for 6 months without receiving any results. And we will see what happens next.

Thought NYU housing was expensive before? NYU has abandoned some of the lowest-cost housing (at less than $900 a month) and instead created a new housing option at $2,000 a month. For the 2-bedroom apartments in this building, NYU is now raking in $4,000 a month total. Given what the Washington Square News calls the "notoriously small" spaces in these apartments--rooms are 8x10 or smaller and do not fit beds larger than twin--NYU is clearly engaging in above-market-rate price gouging.

Picket Lines in Michigan

2006-09-12T09:05:00.000-04:00

Cary Nelson has an article in Insidehighered.com on the faculty strike at Eastern Michigan University; it is a worthwhile read.

Meanwhile, an article in the first issue of the academic year from the Pennsylvania Independent highlights the great vulnerability of master's students at NYU without a union contract.

Sexton and 9/11

2006-09-10T19:49:00.000-04:00

On the first of September, John Sexton sent an email message via NYU's mass mailing system to all members of the NYU community. This message was a welcome message of sorts, a message celebrating some of the incredible research conducted at NYU and some of the expensive initiatives the university has pursued of late. It did not, however, mention a single thing about graduate students or graduate employees. The list of research projects Sexton celebrated are all credited to the efforts of faculty and faculty only, including projects that have clearly involved the work of many graduate employees, advisees, or co-authors, such as those on foreign aid from the economics department or climate change modeling from the Courant Institute. The message also celebrates the new spaces that have recently been created or soon will be for anti-strike departments like economics and philosophy while leaving out new spaces for more involved departments like sociology. And finally, as an institution deeply committed to undermining the rights of working people across the board, Sexton closes the message by wishing the NYU community a happy Labor Day weekend.

But those are just normal acts of mystification on the part of the NYU administration. They are not the things that make this message so troubling. What is troubling is Sexton's decision to insulate himself from criticism by focusing his thoughts on 9/11 instead of on something authentically about NYU. He claims that NYU's response to the 9/11 attacks has been "a commitment to free speech and exchange, through a willingness to be open-minded, and through intellectual rigor." Now, we all know NYU not to be so open-minded. But the message goes further. It claims for NYU a place in the pantheon of 9/11 heroes, a place NYU does not deserve.

In fact, this message does not go far in explaining why Sexton claims this place for NYU. But another message sent on September 5th does. The ostensible purpose of this second message is to invite members of the NYU community to 9/11 memorial ceremony and exhibition, an event I am glad NYU is holding and which I am glad it has seen fit to notify community members about. But the details of the event are buried deep in the message, following Sexton's attempts to claim greatness for NYU in the wake of 9/11. He does point out that students volunteered time, faculty volunteered intellectual responses, and many community members opened their homes to other community members displaced from NYU dorms. But he says more.

Sexton writes, in his 9/11 message, that "the surging sense of community so evident at NYU at that time was one of the proudest moments in my 25 years at the University."

I'm glad Sexton appreciates that which NYU community members did do in those terrible days. But it pained me deeply to see this statement. It pained me for so many reasons, which is perhaps why it is a week later as I write this response. But I will stick with only 2, as this post is long enough already.

First, while the response of some members of the NYU community to the tragedy may have been compassion, action, and maybe in a very few cases even heroism, the response of NYU as an institution was not. Leaving aside some of the work of NYU's medical facilities, social workers, and other professional degree programs, the main response of NYU was to be sure its own were secure, and then to hold a lot of forums to discuss the implications of the attacks. Perhaps exactly what one would expect a university to do. But not anything particularly worth remarking on now, 5 years later, when (depending on your political position) somewhere between 3,000 and 125,000 people are dead who might have been alive but for that moment.

Second, and most galling, is the fact that Sexton apparently views 9/11 as a moment to celebrate with pride, rather than as a tragedy to mourn. Even for those who did heroic things in response to 9/11, what we should feel is a deep regret that such heroism was called for. We should never, as Sexton does, use the anniversary of the attacks to turn our attention away from the pressing problems of today by pretending that they were a "proud moment" to be remembered so gladly and gratefully

So instead of remembering what Sexton does, please take a moment this Monday to remember in whatever way you see fit (whether by observing a moment of silence watching the shinning Towers of Light or by attending a communal memorial like the one at NYU) that people died on that day and that people continue to die every day because of the willingness of so many to look for responses to 9/11 besides that of mourning the people that died and working to keep our world a place that they would have recognized. Sexton, one of my deepest wishes is that you never would have had an occasion to feel that pride.

Big Media

2006-09-08T10:55:00.000-04:00

Corporate media and corporate education do so like to scratch each other's backs--as can be seen by New York Times reporter Karen Arenson's article, which could be called a jubulant elegy for the strike. Weapon of Class Instruction posted a takedown of Arenson and the Washington Square News, so no need to rehash here.

Insidehighered.com does slightly better on the complex-o-meter, following up yesterday's article on the end of the strike with a peice today that actually explores some of the hurdles that have made this fight so difficult. The peole who write comments, as always, are quite lacking in their understanding. Nerds particularly appreciate an anonymous poster at 10:05 AM who thinks that the "truth" about whether or not we work is synonymous with the law about whether the NLRB sees us as workers. Anonymous clearly needs to learn a bit more about how law-making works. Other less-pathetic articles include a post on The Chronicle of Higher Education's "News Blog," which at least includes some history, and a Villager article that includes a mention of the health benefit cuts.

In fact, a few other local news outlets, while still lacking the attention to detail of Insidehighered.com, still do better than the Times (perhaps because they all printed the same article from the Associated Press instead of doing their own reporting): see 1010WINS radio, The Staten Island Advance, WNBC TV, Newsday, and NY1.

So why is the coverage today more intense than at almost any time during our campaign (except for the first day or two of the strike)? Because media corporations themselves are working hard to find ways to rid themselves of unionized workers and thus have quite a lot in common with NYU. For a bit of background on the struggles of media unions, an article from Media Alliance may be of interest.

Health Care in the New Year

2006-09-06T14:11:00.000-04:00

Without a contract, NYU can make whatever changes it wishes to our working conditions and our compensation. Of course, it did this when we had a contract as well, but then we filed greivences and could address these issues. So what new problems have we encountered at the start of this academic year? Like for workers all across the country, NYU has reduced health care benefits for graduate employees. Changes include:

Perscription co-pays for many drugs have increase to $45 a month (which is in an increase of 30% from last year and 125% from 2 years ago). This means an out-of-pocket cost of $540 a year for those taking just one medicine.
Specialty services now require co-pays; they did not previously.
Many diagnostic tests, including some important screening tests for sexually transmitted diseases, are no longer fully covered. Copays have increased from nothing to 20% for radiological services like x-rays, mammograms, and MRIs.

In fact, some of these changes took place over the summer and without notice, leaving graduate employees with unexpected medical debt.

Those affiliated with NYU might be aware of a change in on-campus health services reducing costs for some services obtained at the NYU student health center. The propganda sent out by NYU suggested that this change was made to better compensate their beloved graduate students. But don't be fooled. This change helps traditional-aged undergraduates who live on campus and does nothing for many graduate employees. Why? First of all, because it results in increases rather than decreases in costs for those who must seek their treatment off-campus because they live far from NYU's health center. Secondly, it does not improve coverage for many services that are more important for older students, including dependant-care coverage (NYU's on-campus health center is not fully staffed with pediatricians) and more complex specialty care. And finally, it was not in effect over the summer, when many graduate students seek to schedule health care needs so as to avoid interfearing with work responsibilities during the summer.

GSOC invites supporters to join us on Saturday, September 9th in the Annual New York City Labor Day Parade. GSOCers will be marching in the UAW contingent, which will assemble on West 47th Street between 6th and 7th avenues at 2:45 PM.

News Updates, Within and Beyond NYU

2006-09-06T14:02:00.000-04:00

The Washington Square News has resumed publishing for fall; today's issue contains coverage both of GSOC actions as fall begins and of the dorm controversy.

This summer has also been a busy time for union efforts across higher education. Eastern Michigan University faculty remain on strike, and the university intends to hire scabs to teach the classes. According to Aft On Campus, the magazine of the American Federation of Teachers higher education division, graduate employee unions at the University of Oregon and the University of Illinois-Chicago now have contracts, and adjunct faculty at Northern New Mexico Community College have voted to organize a union.

GSOC, and NYU, in the News

2006-09-02T20:57:00.000-04:00

The July-August 2006 issue of Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors, has an article by Cary Nelson and Jane Buck about the experience of getting arrested at the April 27th rally. The print version of the magazine also carries a great photo of GSOCers and GSOC placards on Washington Square North.

Meanwhile, The Villager has a new story about the 12th street dorm lawsuit, with lots more detail than prior coverage.

GSOC Orientation

2006-09-01T13:57:00.000-04:00

GSOCers staffing tables at the orientation sessions for new TAs signed up dozens of new GSOC members this week. In some disciplines, second-year graduate students who are now first-year employees were excited to be part of the bargaining unit demanding a contract. In other disciplines, new TAs are also new graduate students and were excited to find out about GSOC in the first place.

In news elsewhere on the academic unionism front, faculty at Eastern Michigan University are on strike starting today.

More on the Dorm Lawsuit

2006-08-29T16:45:00.000-04:00

Judge Edward Lehner of the New York State Supreme Court beleives that the NYU dorm on 12th street may be illegal. The case is pending before both the Court and the city's Board of Standards and Appeals. Read all about it in The New York Sun.

Since Nerds have been away...

2006-08-27T15:49:00.000-04:00

There have been few posts. But the academic year is about to start, and the coming week will feature some of the first GSOC actions in a while. So our loyal readers will know what's what, we'll let you know that as the year begins we will not be on strike. This is primarily because the turnover the bargaining unit is so large each year (probably about a quarter of workers are replaced) that last year's strike authorization vote would no longer have legitimacy. Our pressure campaign continues, however, as we work to organize the group of brand new employees who start work over the next two weeks, and we expect exciting things to happen this semester.

As for the dorm scandal referred to in the last post? A lawsuit has now been filed against the developer, Hudson Co., charging it with violation of zoning laws. The plaintiffs in the case include many local residents, and GSOC is involved with supporting the lawsuit.

Insidehighered.com features an article on the annual conference of the Coalition of Graduate Employees Unions. It talks of the fact that many groups attending the conference have pledged to dedicate time and resources to our struggle during the 2006-2007 year--because, as GSOCers have been saying from the beginning, the fight for a union at NYU is not only about us--it's about all universities.

Living at NYU

2006-08-09T21:42:00.000-04:00

NYU has made Business Week's list of the top ten priciest dorms in the United States. And to make it more expensive, they are working on constructing a 26-story dorm in the heart of the East Village that is opposed by hundreds of community members and neighboors. In fact, it is likely that the dorm is in violation of zoning laws due to its improper aquisition of air rights from the historic post office next door.

Spreading the Word

2006-08-06T23:33:00.000-04:00

As the summer comes to a close, Nerds want to highlight the ways in which the word is being spread about GSOC:

GSOC members will be attending the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions conference this coming weekend in Philadelphia.
At the American Sociological Meetings this coming weekend in Montreal, a panel on Labor in the Academy will feature a paper about our strike.
The Minnesota Review, a leading literary journal, features two articles about GSOC: Asad Raza, a GSOC member, reports on the strike and Carl Levine, a UAW Local 2110 lawyer, makes the case for graduate employee unions. And be sure to see the cool cover featuring silhouettes of GSOCers on the picket line--and the rat!
And remeber when we were talking about the Congressional Sign-On Letters for the Senate and the House ? See them now: the Senate letter and the House letter both appear on the GSOC website.

More Trouble for Academic Unions at Private Universities

2006-07-24T12:41:00.001-04:00

Insidehighered.com reports that the administration at Quinnipiac University, a private university in Connecticut with a history of three decades of faculty unionization, has moved to decertify its faculty union. Private universities have been legally allowed not to recognize faculty unions since 1980, when Yeshiva University faculty attempted to unionize, and many private universities moved to immediately decertify faculty unions in the wake of that ruling. But even after waiting three decades, during which relations between faculty and administration were "generally collegial," the administration is now using the same language we are familiar with about how unions "create an 'adversarial structure and culture.'" The rest of the article discusses the efforts by the AFT to get Quinnipiac to back down.

Read the article and you'll get a bonus mention of GSOC--since we are, of course, the exemplar of this strategy.

2006-07-18T15:11:00.000-04:00

The Summer issue of The Clarion, the award-winning newspaper of PSC-CUNY, carries a photo taken just before the arrests in April.

News Update

2006-06-21T12:57:00.000-04:00

Last week marked the 70th Annual United Auto Workers union convention, held in the union town of Las Vegas. GSOC members were there in their roles as voting delegates of Local 2110, and they got to hear a speach by UAW president Ron Gettelfinger in which he mentioned our struggle as one of five out of over 100 strike situations in the last four years. Read more about Gettelfinger's speach at Axcess News.

Elsewhere in academia, adjunct faculty at Marymount Manhattan have voted 95-23 to form a union affiliated with NYSUT. Higher education remains at the forefront of contemporary unionization efforts--remember, GSOC is the future.

Update on Janitors at U of Miami

2006-06-17T01:24:00.000-04:00

The janitors at the University of Miami voted to join SIEU this week. At least 60% voted in favor; the American Arbitration Association stopped counting at that point. This comes after a 9-week strike and a campaign involving students, faculty, and others, as Nerds have previously reported. Read more from The Orlando Sentinal.

How You Can Help GSOC During Summer Vacation

2006-06-09T12:06:00.000-04:00

Nerds know our trusty readers have not been getting very much news lately--that's because NYU is on summer vacation and GSOC's picket-line action is in "recess." After all, pretty much all the summer positions at NYU for graduate student employees are actually not represented by GSOC (most summer teaching, for instance, is paid as an adjunct job). But that doesn't mean our campaign is at a standstill. Here are some things you can do to help:

1. Ask your congressperson to add his or her signature to the open letter to Sexton. While you are at it, forward the information about the letter to your friends and relatives across the country--it will only take a minute for them to send letters, and the more signatures we get (especially from out-of-the-way places) the better. But send it to local representatives as well--they should know that tons of their constituents value their support of GSOC.

2. Don't forget about the sign-on letter from Senators Clinton and Schumer. Ask you senator to sign it, and send it to friends and relatives across the country so they can ask their own senators for a signature. If you are in New York State, write to Clinton and Schumer and tell them how much you appreciate their support of GSOC.

3. Donate to the Strike Fund. Local 2110 did a great job funding GSOCers who were not paid this spring, but remember that pay cuts will continue in the fall and the strike fund needs time to build itself up so GAs can be funded then. Additionally, some GSOCers were denied employment this summer because of their union activism--a tactic on the part of NYU's administration which would be considered an unfair labor practice if we still were recognized by the NLRB.

4. Spread the word about NYU Exposed, the website that tells alumni and others about the corrupt inner workings of NYU. On the website, you can sign up for updates.

5. Are you an NYU alumn or current student at any of NYU's schools? Then write to the alumni giving representative for the school from which you graduated or will graduate and pledge not to donate even one cent to the university until it negotiates a new contract with GSOC. This makes a bigger difference than you might think--university rankings systems like US News incorporate the alumni giving rate into the rankings they compute, and this has traditionally been one of NYU's weak spots in the rankings. While you are at it, forward a copy of your email to Sexton.

6. Make sure to keep reading Nerds and keep telling your friends and aquaintances all the dirt on NYU.

Union Victory in UK

2006-06-07T11:24:00.000-04:00

A grade strike in the United Kingdom has come to an end
with a tentative agreement that will raise wages 13.1% over three years for lecturers and 15.5% for non-academic university staff.

"Taking the AAUP Downtown"

2006-06-06T12:11:00.000-04:00

An excerpt from a longer article about Cary Nelson from The Chronicle of Higher Education (paid subscription or on-campus computer required to view the entire article):

On Thursday, two days after "the Eighteen Wheeler" breakfast, Mr. Nelson got arrested.

It happened in New York, where he had traveled with Jane Buck, departing president of the association. They were there to attend a rally in favor of union recognition for graduate teaching assistants at New York University. The rally began at nearby Judson Memorial Church, where Mr. Nelson gave a fiery speech denouncing NYU. Then he and Ms. Buck went outside and sat in the middle of the street with about 50 striking graduate students, at which point the police arrested them all, put them in vans, and sent them downtown for processing.

Since graduate students at NYU began striking for union recognition, in November 2005, several of the major national union bosses had gone to the campus, many of them to get arrested. The AAUP was different, though. None of the association's presidents had ever gotten booked for acts of civil disobedience. The whole enterprise made Ms. Buck and Mr. Nelson giddy. "It's just the right thing to do," she said before getting locked up.

Breaking with AAUP form was Mr. Nelson's idea, of course. The minor audacity of the gesture was delicious to him. Before the rally, he said he could picture some of his AAUP colleagues "fainting dead away" at the thought of his and Ms. Buck's "being carried away in a paddy wagon."

As it turned out, no one swooned. Roger W. Bowen, general secretary of the AAUP, runs the association's main office, in Washington. In the days following the rally, he says, he received a fair number of e-mail messages about the arrests, hardly any of them expressing dismay. "The communications to my office were, with one exception, quite positive," he says, "and a number of former members who had let their membership lapse said that they would be rejoining."

In a couple of ways, the NYU rally exemplifies Mr. Nelson's vision for the AAUP. First, he hopes the group will start paying more attention to graduate students. Under his watch, he hopes, it will craft "a more elaborate statement on graduate-student rights, procedures, and responsibilities," he says. The concern for teaching assistants is not at all out of character for Mr. Nelson; he is a longtime advocate of graduate-student collective bargaining and has written extensively on the subject.

More generally — and this is a larger break from form for the AAUP — he also wants to inch it toward being more interventionist. The association typically throws its moral weight into an issue only after it has had the chance to conduct a thorough and neutral investigation, and only after there is a "body" — meaning that a conflict has come to a head and someone has gotten hurt. Mr. Nelson thinks there are some instances where the AAUP's principles are so clear, and where violations are so unambiguous, that condemning them should not take months of investigation.

He thinks NYU is a good example. AAUP policy says all campus employee groups should have the right to decide whether they want to bargain collectively. NYU has taken that decision away from its teaching assistants, Mr. Nelson says; hence the AAUP has every reason to stand publicly against the university, without further discussion.

(Of course, the legal debate over TA unions has hung for years on this semantic snag: Are teaching assistants employees, or just apprentices with no bargaining rights? So far, every private university that has faced graduate-student unionization has categorized them as apprentices.)

Front Page News: New York AAUP Newspaper

2006-06-04T18:53:00.000-04:00

In the Spring 2006 edition of New York Academe, the newspaper of the New York State Conference of the American Association of University Professors, we are front-page news. See below for full text.

AAUP Leaders are Arrested in Civil Disobedience Action
Protesters sit down for what they stand for. AAUP president Jane Buck and president-elect Cary Nelson were arrested

On April 27 in New York City, Buck and Nelson were detained by police for their participation in an act of civil disobedience.

They joined more than 50 other protesters to demonstrate their support for striking graduate assistants at New York University.

The strike, which began during the fall semester, has continued as the NYU administration has persisted in its refusal to negotiate with the union following a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision that graduate student employees were not covered by the National Labor Relations Act.

The administration then allowed a collective bargaining agreement between the University and the Graduate Student Organizing Committee/Local 2110 UAW to lapse.

Buck stated AAUP's position on the key issue. "It is the policy of the American Association of University Professors," she said, "that graduate assistants, like other campus employees, should have the right to bargain collectively. Under no circumstances should they be subject to retaliation for their collective bargaining activity."

Cary Nelson, addressing a group of students and labor leaders at New York's Judson Memorial Church, called the action "a watershed moment in the struggle for employee rights."

He further noted: "The NYU administration has recklessly maximized the tension with its graduate employees. Those of us who support them must now stand our ground or there will be no ground left on which to stand."

He called upon the NYU administration to negotiate a contract with the graduate assistants and to recognize the Graduate Student Organizing Committee/Local 2110 UAW, the graduate students' democratically affirmed and legal choice of union representation.

Nelson and Buck were charged with disorderly conduct for blocking the street in front of the Washington Square Arch before the NYU administration building. They will appear in court at a future date yet to be specified.

Sign On Letter for U.S. Representatives

2006-06-01T14:16:00.000-04:00

Jerrold Nadler, Congressman from New York, 8th District, has written an open letter to the United States House of Representatives, asking his colleagues to sign on to a letter to John Sexton calling for negotiations between NYU and our union. GSOC supporters can aid in this effort by calling or emailing their representatives and urging them to sign.

Nadler's letter follows a similar letter from New York Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging all US Senators to sign a letter to Sexton demanding negotiations. GSOC supporters can also urge their Senators to sign this letter.

We encourage all GSOC members and supporters to encourage friends and relatives across the country about these legislative letters, as they are an effective way to keep pressure building on NYU to negotiate over the summer.

The text of the Dear Colleague letter from Nadler to the House is below, followed by the sign-on letter to Sexton.

Dear Colleague:

Graduate employees at New York University, members of GSOC/UAW Local 2110, have been on strike for a second contract since November 9, 2005. At issue are wages, hours, benefits and a meaningful grievance resolution procedure. But, more fundamentally, the dispute is about the right of employees to have a representative of their own choosing.

Graduate employees at NYU voted to join the UAW in 2000, pursuant to an NLRB decision applying the National Labor Relations Act to graduate employees. In 2002, the UAW and NYU signed a collective bargaining agreement – the first ever union contract for graduate employees in a private university. This landmark agreement improved wages, benefits and working conditions, while at the same time preserving the University's exclusive right to determine all academic matters.

At the expiration of the agreement in August 2005, however, the University withdrew recognition of the union, and has since refused to negotiate with GSOC/UAW over the terms of a second contract. NYU has sought to hide behind a flawed and highly controversial decision by the NLRB, newly stocked with Bush appointees, reversing an earlier decision, and holding that graduate employees are not entitled to the protections of the National Labor Relations Act. But, as NYU has admitted, nothing in this NLRB decision or in the law prohibits the University from continuing a collective bargaining relationship with the graduate employees' designated representative.

Graduate employees have consistently demonstrated majority support for the union, including, in the last year, signing petitions calling for negotiations, demonstrating, engaging in civil disobedience and striking in an effort to secure a second contract.

The work of graduate employees is central to the educational mission of the University. These employees teach an estimated eighty-five percent of undergraduate classes in the core curriculum. The work of graduate employees is valuable, and the University should value it by negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with their designated representative.

The University's conduct refusal to negotiate has been soundly condemned by all stakeholders in the community: students, faculty, civil and human rights activists, the greater labor movement and elected officials.

The University has an opportunity to resolve this dispute by negotiating an enforceable contract with GSOC/UAW. Permitting the conflict to carry over to the next academic semester is irresponsible, and at odds with the University's obligation to pursue educational excellence.

We ask you to stand with graduate employees and their elected representative, GSOC/UAW, by signing the attached letter calling for the NYU administration to resolve the dispute by negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the union. For further information, please contact Lisette Morton in my office at 202-225-5635.

Sincerely,

Jerrold Nadler
Member of Congress

Dear President Sexton:

As elected officials, we wish to express our strong support for the graduate employees at New York University, members of GSOC/UAW Local 2110 who have called upon the NYU administration to engage in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.

Graduate employees perform valuable work for the University and are entitled to have the work valued accordingly.

The NYU administration's refusal to bargain with the union relies on the flawed 2005 NLRB decision holding that universities are not obligated under the National Labor Relations Act to bargain with the representative of graduate employees. But as the NYU administration has admitted, nothing in that decisison or the law prevents NYU from maintaining a collective bargaining relationship with GSOC/UAW.

As we look to the next academic year, we call upon the NYU administration to resolve the campus conflict by respecting the will of the majority and negotiating an enforceable second contract with the employees' designated representative, GSOC/UAW.

Sincerely,

Political Pressures and Real Estate

2006-05-31T11:43:00.000-04:00

A Letter to the Editor in Sunday's New York Times:

In "Pomp and Altered Circumstances" (May 14), Michael J. Agovino notes that New York University is no longer the commuter school he attended 15 years ago. Most of N.Y.U.'s undergraduates now come from out of state, necessitating what Mr. Agovino calls the university's "relentless expansion," replacing historic buildings with architecturally lifeless dorms that dwarf surrounding neighborhoods and infuriate neighbors.

However, N.Y.U.'s plans to engulf more real estate may be stymied by politicians who have pledged support for the university's striking graduate teaching assistants. Graduate assistants normally teach about 75 percent of classes for the undergraduates housed in those outsize dorms, but have been on strike since November 2005 after N.Y.U. refused to negotiate a new contract with their elected union.

If Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, State Senators Thomas Duane, Eric Schneiderman and Dale Volker and other lawmakers can translate their support for the union into action, N.Y.U. may have less luck when it next applies for building permits, zoning variances, financing and other forms of public assistance.

David Schleifer
East Village
The writer is a graduate student at N.Y.U.

All About Ehrenreich

2006-05-30T14:12:00.000-04:00

An article in The Hook, a weekly newspaper from Charlottesville, VA, has published a profile of Barbara Ehrenreich in which Ehrenreich had to reschedule her interview because she was on her way out the door to come speak at our rally.

Catherine Stimpson: Feminist? Or Reactionary?

2006-05-28T20:50:00.000-04:00

Nerds, along with the rest of GSOC, tend to save our personal take-downs for John Sexton, NYU president and cheif union-buster, and the billionaires for union-busting who are the NYU trustees. But these are not the only members of the NYU administration who deserve to be taken to task. Like Sexton (who contradicts the Catholic teachings he supposedly holds dear by refusing to acknowledge our right to bargain collectively), Catharine Stimpson is an NYU administrator who has bought into the power structure she is a part of and has thus become an intellectual hypocrite.

Stimpson, some readers may recall, coupled her general distaste for academic unionism in a June 2004 Chronicle of Higher Education article with the observation that "when unions arise and thrive, institutions may have given them reason to do so." GSOCers have seen Stimpson's name on many of the open letters and fake-union proposals that have crossed our desks in the last year, but we have not seen her stand up and admit what it is that NYU has done to give us "reason to do so." She also admitts the truth of many of the critiques that GSOCeers make of the contemporary university in general and NYU specificially--such as the fact that universities are factory-like and teach simply to get tuition dollars.

So why is Stimpson not a defender, not even a grudging tolerator like Alan Sokal, but rather a dedicated member of the union-busting administrator's sqaud?

Well, let's start with her background and see what we can figure out. Stimpson went to college at Bryn Mawr after growing up in Washington State. Her own stories of her past suggest that as a young person, she was interested in exploring the new, the radical, and ther rebellious. She has always been interested in interdisciplinary studies and in questions of power, and after earning her undergraduate degree she went on to earn degrees at Cambridge and Columbia. Her professional experience prior to coming to NYU has included stints at the MacArthur Foundation Fellows Program, Rutgers University, Barnard College, and a term as president of the the Modern Language Association.

Nerds don't see any clues here. Work in women's studies usually sensitizes one to issues of power and privilege. So why doesn't Stimpson get it?

Let's turn to her own words. (The quote is from her chapter in Women in Higher Education, edited by Glazer, Bensimon, and Townsend).

"First, women's studies has sought a particular ethic that values the fredom and the moral equality of all those who seek education and of those who offer it. Women's studies has promised that such an ethic will enhance education, not smash it to peices. Second, women's studies has sought to alter institutions so that they embody such an ethic....Third, women's studies has sought to change consciousness--that of individuals and that of institutions....It has meant a constant, serious, deepening awareness of sets of problems and ideas about women....Women's studies confronts vociferous forces that wish to efface some of its energetic deeds, that wish to crib, cabin, and confine its energizing future. Women's studies has shown its capacity for wild patience, a capacity necesary for survival and moral rejuvenation...."

Let's rewrite that, talking about academic labor issues instead of academic feminism:
The academic labor movement has sought a particular ethic that values the freedom of association and the moral equality of all those who seek education and of those who offer it. The academic labor movement has shown time and again that this ethic will enhance education, not smash it to peices. The academic labor movement has also sought to alter institutions of higher education so that they emody such an ethic. It has also sought to change the consciousness of individuals and institutions so that we all understand that work is being done within the ivory walls. The academic labor movement has meant a constant, serious, deepinging awarness of sets of problems and ideas about work in higher education. Academic labor confronts vociferous forces that wish to efface some of its energetic deeds, that wish to crib, cabin, and confince its energizing future. Academic labor has shown its capacity for wild patience, a capacity necessary for survival and moral rejuvanation, in spite of the continual crushing pressure placed on it by administrators and elites that include the writer of the words this paragraph is based on.

So Stimpson is clearly capable of understanding oppression and the fight against it within the academic system. But she chooses to ignore her own understanding of power and knowledge. She chooses to maintain her position as a union-buster.

Nerds ask again--why? And the only answer is that Stimpson wants to keep her cushy job and her cushy office and make a lot of money. A real women's studies scholar would understand the ways in which collective organization is better for representing the interests of academic women. A real women's studies scholar would understand that with sexual harrassment and discrimination of all kinds still affecting women across NYU constantly, an outside grievance procedure is necesary to protect women from employment abuses--particularly given the fact that the grievance procedure supervised by Stimpson's own office is clearly a joke. A real women's studies scholar would see GSOC as a vital attempt for women AND men to stand together for justice, for freedom, and for real moral equality. A real women's studies scholar would not bust unions to increase her own paycheck.

Stimpson is a dean and a member of the power structure now. She is no longer a real women's studies scholar.

Anti-Union Faculty: Your Activities Will Come to Haunt You

2006-05-26T10:18:00.000-04:00

From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Book Prize Is Yanked From Yale Professors Over Author's Role in Graduate-Student Labor Dispute

By JENNIFER HOWARD

Two Yale University professors, Ian Shapiro and Michael J. Graetz, expected to receive a 2006 Sidney Hillman Award on Tuesday at a ceremony in New York City. Instead, they got phone calls on Tuesday morning telling them that the judges had reversed the decision to honor the professors' book on the repeal of the estate tax, Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight Over Taxing Inherited Wealth.

"I was stunned," said Mr. Shapiro, a professor of political science. "I'd been about to get in the car to go to the city to pick up the award."

Mr. Graetz echoed his co-author's shock. "It came out of the blue for me," he said. "Obviously, I was disappointed."

The telephone calls came from Bruce Raynor, president of the Sidney Hillman Foundation, which sponsors the awards. The foundation is a project of the labor union Unite Here, of which Mr. Raynor is general president. The awards and the foundation are named for Sidney Hillman, who was a leading worker-rights activist in the New Deal era and founding president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, a precursor of Unite Here.

First presented in 1950, the awards honor "journalists, writers, and public figures who pursue social justice and public policy for the common good," according to the foundation's Web site.

Mr. Raynor told the authors that the last-minute reversal had been based on information that came to light about Mr. Shapiro's dealings with members of GESO, the Graduate Employees and Students Organization, in its efforts to organize a graduate-student union at Yale in the 1990s. Unite Here has been involved with GESO's continuing union drive at Yale.

In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Raynor cited allegations of "unfair labor practices" and unspecified "threats against graduate students" by Mr. Shapiro.

"It flies in the face of Sidney Hillman's beliefs and his life," he said, "to present the award to someone who had been actively engaged in resisting union-organization attempts by graduate teaching assistants to join Sidney Hillman's union."

Mr. Raynor added, "We wish we had had this information before the award announcement went out. We regret it, and we certainly don't seek to embarrass Professor Shapiro."

Mr. Graetz and Mr. Shapiro pointed out that the book, which was published last year by Princeton University Press, does not address labor organizing. "There is no connection to GESO at all," Mr. Graetz said. "This book has absolutely nothing to do with the graduate students."

Mr. Shapiro also defended his dealings with graduate students over the years. "In the 1990s, when I was director of graduate studies in political science, I told a group of our students that I thought they had every right to try and form a union," he said, "but in my view it was not a good idea and not a good use of their time. ... I've never threatened anyone in my life, and I'm generally supportive of unions."

The move toward rethinking the award began last week. On Thursday, May 18, the Hillman Foundation ran an advertisement in The New York Times listing the 2006 winners in several categories: book, magazine, broadcast, photojournalism, newspaper, and blog, a new category this year. Mr. Shapiro's and Mr. Graetz's book was listed as the winner in the book category.

Although Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Graetz had written "an excellent book," Mr. Raynor told The Chronicle, the decision came down to "more than just the words on the page."

Once news of the award got out, Mr. Raynor said, his office received dozens of complaints "from numerous current and former graduate teaching assistants who'd been involved in these campaigns."

"We got deluged by this information that we did not know," he said. "I brought it to the attention of the judges."

One of those judges, Harold Meyerson, editor at large of The American Prospect, said that Mr. Raynor called him on Monday and said, "Harold, we have a problem." Mr. Raynor then told him about the objections to the award but left the final decision to him and the other judges, who include Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, and Sheryl WuDunn, an editor at The New York Times.

Mr. Meyerson read a reporter the statement he delivered Tuesday night at the awards ceremony. "Normally judges evaluate the dancer, not the dance," he said. "What we tried to do in the excruciatingly limited time available to us was to gauge the severity and credibility of the allegations. ... A crucial factor for us was that the National Labor Relations Board in the region issued a complaint against several Yale professors, and Professor Shapiro most particularly, for these actions."

As Mr. Meyerson and Mr. Shapiro both noted, the labor board never adjudicated the graduate students' complaint because their labor action failed to meet certain legal criteria.

"There was never any hearing on the merits of the complaint," Mr. Shapiro said. "People like me never got to come into a hearing and say, What's the evidence that I threatened anyone?"

Mr. Meyerson said he had consulted with a friend who was a labor lawyer, who told him that "such a complaint would not have been issued if the NLRB attorneys had not found the claims to be credible and meritorious." In the end, Mr. Meyerson and the other judges concluded that "Professor Shapiro's actions rose to a level that required the rethinking of the award."

"What we came down to was that the book was eminently qualified to win many other awards," he said, but did not fit the criteria of the Hillman Prize.

"We regret of course that this highly improbable situation ever occurred," Mr. Meyerson told the awards audience. "I'm acutely aware that for all of you this comes rather like a pickle in the middle of a chocolate éclair."

Downtown Newpaper: Wrong, Right Out of the Gate

2006-05-24T19:21:00.000-04:00

Downtown, a brand new free newspaper covering lower Manhattan, devoted the cover and much of its first issue to coverage of NYU, including a large article about the May 11 alternative commencement rally accomanied by a phot of the Sexton puppet. Nerds can not post a link to the coverage, as the publication does not appear to have a website yet. The non-GSOC coverage focuses on NYU's desirability, prestige, real estate obnoxiousness (including a plan to build graduate housing in the outer boroughs), and high sticker price.

The GSOC article, however, is quite poor and factually innacurate, and I would urge Nerds readers to write to the author, Edward-Issac Dovere and to the editor, and correct his misconceptions. The article appears below, and futher below that Nerds provide talking points for writing to Dovere.

Moments after NYU finished its 174th university-wide commencement May 11, another commencement got under way.

This mock-commencement rally was organized by graduate students who have been refusing to teach since last November in protest of the university's refusal to negotiate a new contract with higher wages for teaching.

Currently, graduate students are given a minimum $19,000 per year stiped in addition to tuition remittance and health benefits. The university has already decided to increase this stiped by $1,00 in each of the next three years. But as at several other universities around the country, some of these students have sought to unionize and join the United Auto Workers.

"We are leading America, we are leading NYU, and we will lead it to a better place than it is now," said Julia Schleck, a leader of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee who was awarded her Ph.D. in English this year and will soon leave for her new position.

These graduate students have drawn support from prominent local labor leaders, including the Transit Workers Union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), AFL-CIO and UNITE HERE, who tend to view graduate students as a potential area to grow the labor movement.

Representatives from these groups constituted at least as many of the people at the rally as NYU students did.

While most labor leader speakers stressed a general committment to workers' rights, the UFT's Randi Weingarten said that her union would use its force across the state to encourage guidance counselors to make prospective college students aware of the situation at NYU. Putting pressure on the school by possibly influencing undergraduate applications and enrollment may help leverage results, Weingarten said.

"We're going to make sure, as teacher should, that we educate everyone about what's going on here in Greenwich Village," she said.

Also speaking at the rally was Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, among other books critical of current American labor practices.

"When a university disrespects its teachers, it disrespects learning. And when it disrespects learning, it is no longer an institution of higher learning," she said. "It is a real estate empire that has acheived non-profit status by offering some courses and doing some research on the side."

The university disagrees, arguing that teaching is a component of doctoral training, not labor in the traditional sense.

"Students are students, not employees," argued Paul Boghossian, a former chair of the Philosophy Department who has been one of the people dispatched by NYU to represent the university position.

"A student would regard it as a liability that he [Nerds interrupts this message to remind our readers that in Boghossian's old-fashioned world of graduate education, all graduate students are indeed male] could go through five or six years of doctoral training and not have to have any experience teaching," he said. "Any well structured program simply has to have that as part of its curriculum."

Boghossian said that it was principle, not funding, which was the determining factor.

"If we had all the money in the world, so we could just do away with any graduate student teaching and have all aspects of teaching in the class done by people who were expressly employed for that purpose, we still wouldn't do away with the graduate student teaching assistant program that we currently have," he said. "That would make us uncompetative."

So what's wrong with this article? Lots of things.
1. Members of GSOC have not gone on strike for a pay raise. If that was what we wanted, we got that simply by insinuating the threat of a strike. Instead, we want a contract that provides for collective bargaining over our working conditions and a fair greivance procedure with access to outside arbitration.

2. We have not "sought" to "unionize and join the United Auto Workers." We are in fact already members of the United Auto Workers who worked under a union contract with NYU for four years. We are simply asking to maintain the status quo.

3. We have not been "refusing to teach...in protest," we have been engaging in a labor action, in other words a strike.

4. NYU graduate students are in fact not required to teach in order to get their degrees. They are requried to teach in order to get paid their salaries. Many graduate students, depending on the discipline, earn money through outside fellowships, internal awards that do not require work, administrative assistantships, or research assistanships. Many never set foot in the classroom. In addition, many GSOC members are master's students, and others are doctoral candidates who are working in feilds entirely unrelated to their training. Finally, NYU would be a much more competative university if we could take Boghossian up on his suggestion to fully fund all of us without having to work. If I'd been offered that deal, maybe I'd be done with grad school already.

Nerds remind you to write to the Downtown paper and tell them that there is no point in reading their paper if they couldn't even fact-check the very first issue. Find the contact info above.

Nelson and Buck on the Importance of the GSOC Striggle

2006-05-23T11:44:00.000-04:00

In insidehighered.com today, on the court date of those arrested for sitting down in the street on April 27, Cary Nelson and Jane Buck of the AAUP write about why they chose to get arrested with GSOC members. They provide a couple of reasons.

First, they point to the Republican NLRB reversal of our right to unionize and NYU's use of that as an excuse to avoid renegotiating a contract, even though nothing prevents them from doing so. Second, they point to the fact that university administrations across the country will look to NYU's example in choosing how to respond to graduate employees' quest for better working conditions--and until we win, they will chose to do so in ways "in ways the NLRB would consider flatly illegal in cases where it accepted jurisdiction." And this, to Nelson and Buck, will herald the beginning of a turn to even poorer working conditions in higher education than ever before. Nelson and Buck beleive that civil disobedience such as that engaged in by GSOC members in April is the necesary response to this trend.

Incidently, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported yesterday that GESO at Yale has been successful at convincing Yale to divest from the Corrections Corporation of America, a prison company accused of abusing inmates in its prisons. Yale, however, refuses to acknowledge GESO's role in this matter. (For those who don't have access to the Chronicle, coverage is also available at Reuters and The Yale Daily News.

News Roundup from the AFT

2006-05-22T12:27:00.000-04:00

According to On Campus, the bi-monthly magazine from the American Federation of Teachers' higher education divisions, graduate assistants at Temple University have been rallying for a new contract. The biggest bargaining point is health care--coverage for a worker and one dependant can cost a third of a worker's annual salary. The article also reports that Temple GAs filed a successful greivance against the university for its refusal to pay health care costs for summer workers.

Graduate employees at the University of Illinois-Springfield have also voted to unionize (with only one vote cast against unionizing). The keystone of that fight is that Springfield GAs, who tend to be older and are more likely to have children, make $4,000 a year less than their collegues at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus.

Another article highlights the difficulties graduate employees face in giving birth and finding childcare without paid parental leave, clock extensions, and subsidies for child care expenses.

The magazine also reports on stories previously covered by Nerds: the GET-UP report on the casualization of the academic workforce; the successful unionization vote at Western Michigan University; and the unionization campaign at Vermont College.

And on the NYU front: a breif note in the technology section highlights the presence of the GSOC campaign on Wikipedia--it quotes the page on Sexton, reporting that it has experiences more than 100 revisions since our strike began. (Nerds would point out the readers that since GSOC is not affiliated with the AFT, they must indeed beleive that the technological battlefront of our campaign is newsworthy--cool!)

Ask Your Senators to Support GSOC!

2006-05-19T12:15:00.000-04:00

New York Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton have written an open letter to the United States Senate, asking their colleagues to sign on to a letter to John Sexton calling for negotations between NYU and our union. If you are a resident of any state besides New York, you can help GSOC by calling or emailing your senators (and urging others to do so as well) and asking them to sign this letter.

The text of the Dear Colleague letter from Schumer and Clinton to the senate is below, followed by the sign-on letter to Sexton.

Dear Colleague:

As you may know, New York University in New York and the Graduate Student Organizing Commitee of the United Automobile Workers (GSOC/UAW Local 2110) have been engaged in ongoing contact dispute for over a year now. Both sides are currently at an impasse in negotiations.

We have long recognized and supported the rights of workers to organize and acheive contracts via a good faith negotiation process. We ask your support today as we urge New York University and UAW to once again work in good faith to reach a collective bargaining agreement on behalf of graduate student workers at NYU. It is clear the University, union employees, students and the City of New York stand to benefit greatly if an agreement is reached and a resolution to this impasse is resolved efficiently and fairly.

Please join us in calling on both parties to come to an agreement in a timely manner. Please contact Bridget Petruczok on Senator Schumer's staff at 202-224-7401 or Chris Falvo on Senator Clinton's staff at 212-688-9609 by May 26 to sign on the letter or if you have any further questions. Thank you for your support on this important issue.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer Hillary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Senator (NY) U.S. Senator (NY)

Dear President Sexton:

As long-time supporters of both higher education and the right of workers to organize, we write to urge New York University (NYU) to engage in good faith negotiations with its graduate employees, GSOC/UAW Local 2110, for a collective bargaining agreement.

NYU is a valued and important institution that does much to add to New York City's prestige, intellectual capital and vibrancy. Similarly, we believe that graduate employees are an essential part of the university community - they perform significant work for the University and deserve to have their work valued accordingly.

We understand that a 2005 NLRB decision, holding that universities are not obligated under the National Labor Relations Act to bargain with the representatives of graduate employees, has stalled negotiations. However, we also understand that nothing in that decision or the law prevents an employer from maintaining a collective bargaining relationship with GSOC/UAW.

GSOC/UAW Local 2110 and NYU have successfully conducted negotiations in the past. It is our hope that the parties will once again enter into discussions that conclude with a mutually beneficial contract.

We look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer Hillary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Senator (NY) U.S. Senator (NY)

More Alternative Commencement News Coverage

2006-05-18T20:34:00.000-04:00

People's Weekly World has a good article quoting Toussaint and Sweeny, along with GSOC members.

The Villager's article on NYU's commencement also includes coverage of the rally, though you do have to scroll down to get to it.

Nerds have also heard a rumer that the rally was featured on WBAI radio, and we know that the Fox News camera present at the rally shot footage and broadcast it, but we can't find links to any of it.

Inconsistency Over Employee Status

2006-05-16T11:21:00.000-04:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week (article only available with a subscription), in an article on the Federal Office of Civil Rights, that the Justice department has threatened to sue Southern Illinois University for employment discrimination because they had fellowship programs restricted to women and/or members of minority groups (since disbanded under threat of the suit).

So why are Nerds blogging about this? Well, assuming that The Graduate Dean's Fellowship at SIU is one of the descendants of these prior programs, given its focus on "traditionally underserved individuals," this whole case brings to light the inconsistancy with which the Bush administration views the employment status of graduate employees.

Like our MacCracken awards at NYU, these fellowships offer some time without employment requirements, but during the fall and spring of the second year of the fellowship, fellowship recipients are required to spend 20 hours per week in teaching or research as "assigned and supervised" by the department. Other employment is prohibited, and the fellowship provides a monthly stipend, along with tuition remission.

So according to the Justice department, these graduate employees are workers. According to the NLRB, they would not be (though as this is a public university, the NLRB would not have jurisdiction here). Of course, it is not a suprise that the Bush administration chooses to consider graduate employees workers when they can use this fact to undermine affirmative action but does not when they can use this to undermine affirmative action. But it is still worth noting that there are times when even the federal government recognizes that we are indeed employees.

(Incidently, graduate assistants at SIU are currently working on a unionization campaign. They have conducted a successful card drive and will vote on union representation in September. One of their key issues is healthcare.)

News Coverage of "Alternative Commencement"

2006-05-15T13:23:00.000-04:00

Workers World's "On the Picket Line" section updates readers about the re-certification of majority, as well as the April 27th and May 11th rallies.

The Washington Square News highlighted the great speakers at last Thursday's rally, and interestingly all John Union-Buster Beckman could muster is that he thinks the rally was "out of step with the joyous rhythms of commencement day." Hmmm, I though we had a lot of rhythm (particularly when The Ride was playing) and that the rally was pretty joyus...I guess Beckman was not there and therefore has no idea what he is talking about.

Incidently, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the average salary for Cheif Legal Officers at Doctoral/Research Extensive universities like NYU is $170,000. Nerds will have to see if we can find out how much higher the CLO at NYU's salary is.

GSOCers at Alumni Weekend

2006-05-14T15:39:00.000-04:00

This weekend, GSOC members handed out fliers to alumni visiting NYU for their class reunions. We got a lot of support from alums who were disgusted by NYU's union-busting tactics--many of whom had not previously been aware of the strike. GSOC asked alumni to write to Sexton telling him that they would withhold their annual alumni donations until such time as the NYU administration agrees to bargain a second contract. We also asked alumni to send their donations to the GSOC Strike Fund, and Nerds figure this is as good a time as any to post our monthly solicitation message. So if you have some spare cash, donate to the strike fund. Even though the semester is over, there are GSOC members who have been locked out of jobs for this summer and for next fall and who still need all the help they can get to pay their bills.

In the random news relating to NYU category, there are two interesting articles in this weekend's press roundup.

First, the Daily News reports that Bloomberg's daughter Georgina, who is a top-ranked show-jumper with plans to compete in the 2008 Olympics, enrolls in one semester's worth of courses per year at NYU in an "individualized study program." Now, this is nothing against Georgina, who is after all training horses 12 hours a day and has good reason to need a non-traditional program of study, but it is interesting that in NYU's quest to compete with the Ivy Leagues, it still offers course equivilancy for non-academic experiences and other accomodations for the children of the rich and famous which are generally more common in less selective institutions.

Second, writer Michael Agovino writes in today's New York Times, writes about the changes in NYU since he was an undergraduate there, 15 years ago. To Agovino, as to so many of us, NYU is no longer a "'New York' University," but rather "an enclave of downtown elitism." The article is worth a read.

Save the Internet Campaign

2006-05-12T16:22:00.000-04:00

Congress is considering a law which could abandon one of the founding principals behind the Internet--Net Neutrality. This law would allow ISP providers to limit access and accessability to sites that they don't want their customers to see--whether because they want to make more money or because they don't like the political message the sites are sending. This law, if passed, would make it much harder for sites sending any alternative message to get their voices heard. To learn more or to join the campaign to preserve Net Neutrality, go to Save The Internet.

What would the end of Net Neutrality mean for sites like this one? It would give NYU, Yale, Columbia, and the other private universities who want to bust unions a pass at making Nerds hard to reach for their own internal viewers. But if we give universities the benefit of the doubt and pretend that they do still value academic freedom, that does not mean we are off scott-free. A large percentage of NYU students connect to the internet through 3rd party ISPs, either because they live in an apartment-style dorm without dedicated ethernet connections or because they live off campus. And most community members and concerned observers are of course using commercial ISPs. NYU could surely work out a deal to limit access. Or alternatively, the anti-union forces that run many commercial ISPs (such as Verizon) could choose to block or limit all union-related content.

Concerned? Sign the petition. Call your congresspeople. Tell your friends. And if you have a blog or website, join the blog campaign.

Sometimes, There is No Title

2006-05-12T14:43:00.000-04:00

The arrest of AAUP President Cary Nelson at the April 27th GSOC rally is mentioned in an Insidehighered.com article on an unrelated topic.

And according to the Washington Square News, Brian Levine, the medical school student who is a key architect of NYU's current fake-union plan) and who spends his spare time sending around photos of his drunken "hot" med school classmates, has been awarded a $50,000 fellowship in social entrepreneurship--presumably a good payoff for his collaboration in busting GSOC and disenfranchising his fellow graduate students.

And a pseudonymous professor of English wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education that "the place where greed is most evident among tenured faculty members is in their general refusal to support better pay and benefits for part-timers and graduate students who increasingly do most of the difficult teaching at the major universities where one finds the tenured professors who are very well paid indeed for that Faustian bargain." Well, yes. That's one of the many reasons why we GSOCers appreciate those faculty members who do support our struggle.

Alternative Commencement

2006-05-11T19:52:00.000-04:00

Today, GSOC hosted an alternative commencement rally to honor graduating GSOC members and undergraduate members of GUS (who were given "Diplomas in Social Justice). One GUS graduate and two GSOC graduates (both of whom have post-Ph.D. employment) spoke about how important their participation in GSOC has been to them this year. Sociology Professor Jeff Goodwin told GSOCers that we are inspiring because we go beyond "just showing up" to actually try and change the problematic insitutional structure of NYU and of the contemporary higher education system.

Supporters came from a wide variety of local unions, including UAW shops representing adjunct professors, writers, and other workers; UNITE-HERE! members from the service sector and from Yale; graduate employees from other private universities such as UPenn; members of the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY; SIEU members; and members of TWU Local 100, among others.

Labor activists, including Randi Weingarten (AFT), Roger Toussaint (TWU), Barbara Bowen (PSC-CUNY), Elizabeth Bunn (UAW), John Wilhelm (UNITE-HERE!), John Sweeny (AFL-CIO), and others spoke about the importance of the GSOC struggle for the broader labor movement, about their commitment to standing with us until we win, and about their admiration for the courage and fortitude for GSOCers who have now been walking the picket line for over 6 months. And Randi Weingarten announced an initiative to educate the high school guidance counselors throughout the state (all of whom, spare those in Buffalo, are members of her union) about the GSOC struggle and the obnoxious behavior of the NYU administration.

Other rally participants included rock band The Ride (donated by a sibling union) who played great music to start us up and wind us down. Representatives from the coalition of religious leaders who are supporting the strike read a letter speaking of John Sexton's Jesuit education and the ways in which he violates Jesuit and Catholic teachings every day that he refuses to come to the table. And New York State elected officials, including Senator Tom Duane and Assemblymember Deborah Glick, told Sexton that elected officials will not let a private institution bust unions while taking public money.

The keynote speaker at our alternative commencement was Barbara Ehrenreich, a member of the UAW National Writers' Union. She told us that she recently visited the University of Miami--and just after her visit, the university agreed to negotiate a contract with its janitors. So she hopes, as do we, that her presence is an omen of good things to come.

Finally, the best story of the day is that John Sexton told a GSOC member this morning that he would be the only one at the lunchtime rally in a comment that smacks of middle school immaturity more than almost anything else in the last six months. So imagine Sexton's dismay at the pro-GSOC chants carrying across to the audience members filing out of commencement--chants shouted by hundreds of us in the audience!

It was a great day and a fitting celebration of what we have accomplished in six months on strike. And now...onwards and upwards!

Grad Rally Thursday

2006-05-10T13:28:00.000-04:00

GSOC will honor graduating GSOC members and undergraduate supporters at a rally this Thursday from 11:30 PM to 1 PM on Sullivan Street between 3rd and Washington Square South. Speakers will include graduating GSOC members, NYU faculty, John Sweeny (President of the AFL-CIO), Roger Toussaint (President of TWU Local 100), Christine Quinn (City Council Speaker), Randi Weingarten (President of the UFT), and Barbara Ehrenreich (author of Nickle and Dimed). Come on out and join us!

We're Here, We're There, We're Everywhere

2006-05-08T20:25:00.000-04:00

Today, GSOCers lefleated a board of trustees meeting held at Trustee Martin Lipton's law firm. We also congratulated GSOC members and others graduating from NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at today's GSAS Convocation at Lincoln Center, as well as provided information about the successful petition campaign to convocation guests. Graduating GSOC members wore GSOC buttons during the ceremony.

Also today, a documentary about the GSOC strike titled "I'm On Strike Because," created by Steve Fletcher, premiered at Landmark's Sunshine Cinema.

This Thursday, after NYU's All-University Commencement, GSOCers will again congratulate GSOC members and undergraduate supporters who are graduating with a great program of speakers. If you are going to be at Commencement or anywhere nearby, come find us on Thompson Street at 11:30, right after Commencement gets out. Think of it as an alternative Commencement, one that's on a bit more human of a scale than the chaos in Washington Square Park.

NYU Exposed

2006-05-06T10:38:00.000-04:00

Check out the new website, NYU Exposed, which explores the financial workings of NYU, its campus policies, and its relations with the community (especially in terms of real estate)--lots of great information for NYU students, NYU alumni, and the NYU community in general.

More GSOC Press Hits

2006-05-04T20:10:00.000-04:00

A photo and a short discussion of the rally appear in this week's Villager.

The People's Weekly World featured a blurb about Thursday's rally in their "This Week in Labor" section. In their coverage of the anti-war rally last Saturday, they also quote Eden Schulz discussing the connection between the war and union-busting.

The New Zealand Association of University Staff highlighted the rally in its Tertiary Update, distributed to organization members. The update dated today is also available on the New Zealand Scoop website.
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And a bit less timely, but important still the same: Coverage in the UAW Magazine, Solidarity

Religious leaders with NYU strikers

An interfaith group of religious leaders met with New York University President John Sexton to express its concerns with the university's refusal to negotiate with graduate employees. Members of GSOC/UAW Local 2110 have been on strike since Nov. 9 after the university refused to bargain a second contract.

An appeal from Religious Leaders for Justice at NYU has gathered more than 100 signatures to an open letter that reads in part: As religious leaders, we call on NYU to continue to recognize GSOC/UAW 2110 as the union for its graduate student employees and negotiate a new contract. Moreover, we call on you to stop the threat of reprisals and the implementation of actions to penalize striking graduate employees who are seeking the recognition of their union."

"The university administration has suggested that they need not negotiate with our union because they are not legally obligated to," said Jessie Morgan-Owens, a striking TA. "But these religious leaders have affirmed NYU is moraly and ethically obligated to respect our rights to associate with other workers to better our working conditions."

The delegation included Rev. Mark Hallinan of the Society of Jesus; Imam Samer Alraey of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York; Rev. David Dyson of Brooklyn's Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church; Rabbi Michael Feinberg of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition; Rev. Earl Kooperkamp of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Harlem; Avram Lyon of the Jewish Labor Committee; and Rev. Donna Schaper of the Judson Memorial Church.

Support from CAUT

2006-05-03T15:25:00.000-04:00

(from the GSOC journal)

Last Thursday, Jane Buck and Cary Nelson, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) departing President and President-elect, were arrested along with 55 others in solidarity with our union and to protest the administration's continued refusal to negotiate. In response, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has passed a resolution in solidarity with the AAUP's support for our union. The CAUT represents more than 55,000 academic staff at over 100 universities and colleges in Canada. CAUT delegates passed the following resolution unanimously.

Resolution: Solidarity with the President and President-Elect of AAUP

Whereas the president and president-elect of the American Association of University Professors have been arrested for their participation in a peaceful act of civil disobedience in support of striking graduate assistants at New York University; and

Whereas the administration of New York University refuses to negotiate with or recognize the graduate assistants’ democratically affirmed and legal choice of union representation,

Be it resolved that CAUT Council express solidarity with the president and president-elect of the American Association of University
Professors, and convey support for their efforts to defend the rights of striking graduate assistants at New York University.

Passed unanimously by the CAUT Council
April 30, 2006

And Another Week Begins...

2006-05-02T10:04:00.000-04:00

...with "A Day Without an Immigrant," a nationwide day of boycotts and rallies for immigrant rights. GSOCers were in Union Square for a rally where many speakers focused on the links between rights for immigrants and rights for workers. The NYPD does not estimate crowd size, but some beleive that more than one million people took part in demonstrations in NYC yesterday.

The current issue of Academe magazine features an article about the sanctions against GSOC strikers. And the World Socialist Web Site includes a story about the April 27th rally in its rundown of Workers' Struggles in the Americas.

Finally, the University of Miami has agreed to force UNICCO, the subcontractor which supplies the campus with janitors, to allow a card-check verification process to determine if workers want union representation through the SEIU. This comes after hunger strikes involving students and janitors as well as a international publicity and petitions directed at university president Donna Shalala.

Letters of Support from Politicians

2006-05-01T00:35:00.000-04:00

The redemonstration of majority has already begun to pay off in terms of support from politicians. Below, Nerds provide two letters that GSOC and Sexton have received from political supporters on both sides of the aisle.

April 27, 2006

As long-time supporters of both higher education and the right of workers to organize, we write to indicate our strong desire that New York University (NYU) engage in good faith negotiations with its graduate employees, GSOC/UAW Local 2110, for a collective bargaining agreement.

NYU is a valued and important institution that does much to add to New York City's prestige, intellectual capital and vibrancy. Similarly, we believe that graduate employees are an essential part of the university community - they perform significant work for the University and deserve to have their work valued accordingly.

We understand that a 2005 NLRB decision, holding that universities are not obligated under the National Labor Relations Act to bargain with the representatives of graduate employees, has stalled negotiations. However, we also understand that nothing in that decision or the law prevents an employer from maintaining a collective bargaining relationship with GSOC/UAW.

Indeed, GSOC/UAW Local 2110 and NYU have successfully conducted negotiations in the past. It is our hope that the parties will once again enter into discussions that conclude with a mutually beneficial contract.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer Hillary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Senator (D-NY) U.S. Senator (D-NY)

April 26, 2006

Dear Dr. Sexton,

I want you to know that I have never written a letter of this nature before. I represent the 59th Senate District in Western New York, which includes the State University of New York at Geneseo. As the senior Senator from all of upstate New York, I have always been a strong supporter of higher education. However, your school has come under heavy scrutiny by many of us upstate.

For your University, which is one of the most liberal in the country, to refuse to negotiate a second labor agreement with the UAW for graduate employees is hypocritical and, in the opinion of many, ludicrous. To hide behind an NLRB decision is, frankly, cowardice.

For NYU, a University that spawned the Brennan Institute, possibly the most liberal institution in the State, to hide behind the cloak of legality, is frankly unconscionable. You should be ashamed to know that your institution seems to represent anti-government and anti-democracy principles.

My advice is to lead your University in responsibly negotiating with the GSOC/UAW before you look even worse.

Very truly yours,

Dale Volker (R)

More News Coverage of Thursday Rally

2006-04-30T15:49:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, an article reported on the GSOC rally and arrests this past Thursday in The Yale Daily News.

The Washington Square News and TMCnet have both reported that the GAC, the graduate student pupit government, has released a new draft of its proposal for a souped-up prom committee run by a "house of delagates." According to these reports, the new proposal includes a provision to "reasess" the workings of the plain in the 2009-2010 academic year, although that is the only mention of changes to the prior draft, and Nerds have not actually seen said proposal. In any case, the only reason why this is at all interesting is because the GAC (despite denying that this is what they were doing) timed the release of their "new" proposal to occur during the GSOC rally this past Thursday.

Finally, blogcritics.org carried an article about the arrest of AAUP officials at the Thursday rally, supposedly the first event of its kind in the history of the organization.

March for Peace and Justice

2006-04-29T20:00:00.000-04:00

GSOC members joined other members of UAW Local 2110 and members of the NYU/New School Adjuncts' Union today in the March for Peace and Justice, a two-mile march down Broadway. Before the march got under way, there was a labor rally (perportedly the largest anti-war labor rally ever). Along with Roger Toussaint of the TWU and representatives from the SEIU, PSC-CUNY, and other local unions, a GSOC member spoke to the crowd about the fact that the War in Iraq and the War on Workers' Rights are both part Bush administration policy.

Nerds also want to announce that PSC-CUNY has reached a contract agreement with NYC, NY State, and the CUNY administration (pending ratification by members). This settlement, which includes important victories on key bargaining points desired by PSC-CUNY, came after working without a contract for over three years. PSC-CUNY members worked hard to keep political pressure high and held rallied right up until last week (though the Taylor Laws prevent them as public sector employees from striking). But if they could win their contract fight after over three years of effort, that gives me even more hope for us.

The News Media on Thursday's Rally

2006-04-28T16:53:00.000-04:00

This is just what rolled in with today's press.

NYC Indiemedia, which syndicated their story from Nerds

The Columbia Spectator, the student newspaper from Columbia University

The Washington Square News article is particularly interesting, as despite the administration's continued claim that only a "tiny" percentage of GAs are still striking and that the strike is "no longer disruptive," undergraduates keep telling the WSN that the strike is disrupting their educations. They ought to remind the administration that NYU's core business is not making money but rather educating undergraduates, because then perhaps the administration would notice the disruption in the way that students and library patrons do.

Gothamist includes a great photo of strikers being lead off by the police, as well as links to other photos, with its brief article

The Chronicle of Higher Education (in a subscription-required article) and Insidehighered.com both carried articles focusing on the AAUP involvement. Insidehighered.com's article features a discussion of potential AAUP plans to launch an academic boycott of NYU.

A report of the petition majority (which doesn't mention the rally) appears in People's Weekly World. Slightly less timely, but still worth noting, is an article in Lilith magazine.

Finally, and most excitingly, The New York Times placed a huge photo of the sit-in in today's Metro Section, along with an article about our struggle, yesterday's rally, and the success of the petition drive.

A Great Day for GSOC

2006-04-27T20:02:00.000-04:00

At 12 noon today, hundreds of GSOC members, faculty and undergraduate supporters, members of other graduate employee unions, and visiting dignitaries from across the labor movement met in Judson Memorial Church to hold a rally in celebration of the fact that GSOC/UAW 2110 has officially recertified its majority support among NYU graduate employees.

The program included a rousing speeches of support for GSOC by John Wilhelm (Co-President of Unite-HERE), Elizabeth Bunn (Secretary-Treasurer of the UAW), a pastor from Judson Memorial Church, faculty supporters from NYU and from the AAUP, and New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. Also, a letter of support from New York State Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer urging the NYU administration to bargain a second contract was read. The total number of signatures gathered from members of the bargaining unit in each department were announced to show the breadth and depth of support from across the employee body.

Five GSOC members spoke about their involvement with GSOC and their own personal reasons for wanting a union: job security in the expository writing program, for example, and fairness in appointments for international graduate students in chemistry. A GSOC member from the economics department told the audience how economists study "the invisible hand of the market," but the only hand he's experienced in this struggle is the hand of John Sexton. A member of the original group who met in 1996 (!) to start the process of organizing for a graduate employee union at NYU, Kitty Krupat, presented a brief history of GSOC. And many of the speakers talked about how inspiring and dedicated the members of GSOC are.

One of the great things about the event is that a lot of people who have not been involved with GSOC in the past much or at all came out today to represent their departments and show their committment to winning a second contract. We had representatives from ever corner of campus, from psychology to physics, from classics to computer science.

After the rally was over, the assembled group gathered for a march across Washington Square to the Arch, a march that was filled with the sounds of chants, drums, and an acordian playing "Solidarity Forever." Many of the people sunbathing or dog-walking in the park stood still to watch the line of marchers streching all the way across the park from top to bottom. At the arch, we lined up on both sides of Washington Square North to watch as approximately 50 (more specific figures will have to wait for the news reports) held a sit-in in the street, blocking traffic until they were all arrested and carted off to jail to the sounds of applause and chanting from their fellow GSOCers.

It was a wonderful and inspiring event, a time for us to all celebrate our strength and our committment, and a time to show NYU that we are not going away. We will be here as long as it takes. And we are only growing stronger, louder, and more determined.

Thursday: GSOC Convention & Rally

2006-04-26T11:52:00.000-04:00

The American Arbitration Association has certified that GSOC has gathered signatures from a majority of graduate employees at NYU. More signatures continue to be added to this list, and we have also gathered a large number of signatures from those who are not working this year but will be working next year.

The results of the petition drive will officially be announced, department by department, at a GSOC Convention to Call for Negotiations held tomorrow (Thursday), April 27, at Judson Memorial Church at Noon. All current and future GSOC members are invited to come and stand with their departments to see the breadth and depth of support for GSOC on this campus.

Following the convention at 1:00 PM, there will be a march to the Washington Square Arch, where supporters from around campus and from other universities in New York City will be gathered for a rally.

Nerds will be sure to tell our readers all about it after it happens.

Sextonism

2006-04-25T11:25:00.000-04:00

"Sextonism:" a disease in which the administration of a higher education institution engages in rediculous hyperbole in describing its accomplishments--something Sexton does every time he pretends that graduate assistants are "just students" rather than workers who provide an integral portion of the juice that makes NYU a desirable school for undergraduates as well as the research powerhouse it pretends to be.

Without us, professors would have much less time to apply for quadrillion-dollar grants and perform speaking engagements around the world--because it is graduate assistants who run the statistical calculations, perform the experiments, conduct the interviews, collect the prior literature, and write the textbook chapters. Without us, the undergraduate students would not be leaving NYU as broadly educated and well-prepared graduates--because it is us who teach 84.5% of classroom hours in general education courses, instruct the undergraduates how to put together proper sentances in foreign languages, fill in for full-time faculty by teaching their courses when they are away doing something "more important" for a week or a semester, help puzzled students work through material they don't understand, and grade long papers and essay exams so faculty do not feel compelled to grade only using multiple choice.

Graduate assistants provde the heart of what makes NYU great. Ignoring our work is an act of hyperbole about the accomplishments and skills of other employees at NYU, namely faculty.

WSN on the Strike

2006-04-24T16:03:00.000-04:00

The Washington Square News highlighted GSOC in today's issue. There's an editorial reminding undergrads why they should support the strike (a point also reinforced by a new 'zine published by NYU Graduate/Undergraduate Solidarity). The WSN also ran coverage of the successful petition campaign and pointed out that NYU has given undergraduate free metrocards to help them get to classes which were moved off campus due to the strike.

Hunger Strike at the University of Miami

2006-04-22T00:14:00.000-04:00

As Nerds first told you on April 11, nearly two weeks ago, janitors and students at the University of Miami are engaging in a hunger strike for union representation and recognition. Four hunger strikers have been hospitalized.

You can get news about the campaign, including video, when you go to this page inviting you to send a message to Donna Shalala asking her to exercise her authority as President of the University of Miami to intervene on behalf of the janitors.

News from Other Unions

2006-04-21T10:02:00.000-04:00

Teaching assistants at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo voted this week to form a local of the AFT. Only 14 members of the 700-person bargaining unit voted against unionization. As we all know, the key issue in their union campaign is recognition, but workers are also seeking improvements in health care, particularly for women's health issues. And the news wire about the vote--which has been certified and made official--contains a line at the end about our strike!

Also today 32BJ, the union representing doormen and building maintnance workers in New York City narrowly avoided a strike when management agreed to many of their demands an hour after the strike deadline. Full health insurance and pension coverage will be preserved, and though wage increases are lower than workers would have liked, there is no wage freeze. Congratulations to 32BJ negotiators for doing such a good job! If workers had gone on strike, though, it would have meant two strikes on campus at once for the NYU administration.

A Majority of Graduate Employees Show Their Support for a Union

2006-04-20T16:17:00.000-04:00

A majority of graduate employees at NYU--over 500 of something less than 1,000 total--have signed a petition stating that even after a strike of almost six months, they still support GSOC and want the NYU administration to negotiate a second contract. This support is broad across the entire body of employees. In fact, a majority of workers in a majority of departments have signed. In addition, a large number of graduate students who are not yet employees or who are former employees have also signed.

The petition reads as follows:
"We the undersigned want a union contract for the work we perform as graduate employees of NYU. Over the years a majority of graduate employees has consistently demonstrated support for our union, GSOC/UAW Local 2110, including in the last year signing an open letter calling for collective contract negotiations, striking, picketing and attending demonstrations.

As we look to the next academic year, we call upon the NYU administration to resolve the campus conflict by respecting the will of the majority and by negotiating an enforceable second contract with our bargaining representative, GSOC/UAW Local 2110."

This is terrific news, as it provides direct evidence to counter the administration's claims that no one cares anymore, that graduate employees at New York University deeply care about the conditions of our work and will keep doing what it takes to get a contract, as long as it takes.

The Strike, on Video

2006-04-20T16:05:00.000-04:00

Click the video to activate

Carrots and Sticks

2006-04-19T13:56:00.000-04:00

Early in the strike, the NYU administration offered a carrot to those workers who were most exploited at NYU: TAs teaching more than one stand-alone course per semester were given a reduction to one stand-alone course maximums--in the hopes that these workers would go back to work greatful for this important but insufficient change. But it turns out that this change may not be applied equally, and may only be temporary, particularly for the TAs in the Expository Writing program.

The Columbia Spectator published an article yesterday about the need for a graduate employee union there and the connections between the Columbia unionization effort, administrative anti-union tactics, and GSOC.

UVa Students Arrested

2006-04-17T11:54:00.000-04:00

17 students at UVa were arrested for staging a peaceful sit-in asking for a living wage to be paid to university employees. This comes after they had been denied food, internet access, and access to academic and religious books over the course of the sit-in. The president of the university justified these arrests by saying that they were for the "protection of the protesters" and because "they were protesting at cost to themselves and their families over the holiday weekend."

More on Immigration Rally

2006-04-15T15:07:00.000-04:00

People's Weekly World newspaper online carried an article about the Monday immigration rally featuring a quote from GSOC member and featured speaker Orlanda Lara.

UVA Student Sit-In for a Living Wage

2006-04-14T16:46:00.000-04:00

Students at the University of Virginia are currently engaging in a sit-in to demand a living wage for university staff. The sit-in is already three days old, and campus police are barring students from receiving food or internet connections. More information is available on the UVA Living Wage website.

To show your support for these students and staff, you can sign a petition urging the university to raise wages, and you can also send an email through the UnionVoice website to university administration officials.

GSOC Featured in ASA Publication

2006-04-12T10:09:00.000-04:00

A breif story about the strike appears in the most recent issue of the American Sociological Association Section on Labor and Labor Movements Newsletter. To read, select the March 2006 issue--the article is on the third page.

Random News Updates

2006-04-11T19:47:00.000-04:00

WSN coverage of the Immigration Rights Rally.

And in the world of academic labor struggles beyond NYU, janitors at the University of Miami, accompanied by students, are engaging in a hunger strike for union recognition.

Finally, an odd tidbit: NYU's involvement with some not-quite-charter school, for which they will provide student teachers, tutors, etc.

Coverage of the Immigration Rights Rally

2006-04-11T00:24:00.000-04:00

From amNY, an article which mentions the presence of NYU strikers at the rally.

Estamos Aqui y no Vamos...

2006-04-10T19:31:00.000-04:00

Today, a large number of GSOCers joined thousands of other New Yorkers at the rally for immigrants' rights at City Hall, one of 129 similar marches/rallies accross the United States in opposition to HR 4437 (see Nerds' prior discussion of the bill). It was an amazing experience hearing so many diverse immigrant voices displaying together their dedication to working hard in the United States; to giving their children a great future. A number of local and state elected officials and many, many union workers and union leaders were also on hand to express their solidarity with the movement for immigrants' rights.

One of the most inspiring moments for us GSOCers was the speech given by Orlando Lara, who described his own journey across the Rio Grande to the United States at sixth months old as well as his involvement with GSOC. Lara connected our struggle for recognition with the struggle of all immigrant workers, documented and undocumented, for the change for jobs with justice.

Before going to the rally, some GSOC member handed out fliers about the strike in front of NYU Trustee Martin Lipton's law firm, Wachtell Lipton Rosen Katz, the site of a trustees meeting today--and even managed to leaflet the Trustees' waiting limos.

Sexton Town Hall on Tuesday

2006-04-06T13:44:00.000-04:00

I, at least, was unable to attend Sexton's "Town Hall with Graduate Students" this past Tuesday. It sounds like it was a pretty interesting experience, but I'll have to let The Washington Square News and The Weapon of Class Instruction update you.

I am not sure I understand why Sexton keeps having these meetings. They seem to highlight his fundamental weaknesses and give us a tool for building solidarity and generating energy and outrage.

Immigration Law and Higher Education

2006-04-05T12:10:00.000-04:00

Protests have spread across the country in response to proposed immigration legislation currently pending in congress. This bill and related legislation would have dramatic impacts on higher education, including revoking funding for universities who admit undocumented students, making it a felony to overstay a student visa, and making it more difficult to adjust status from student to immigrant. This legislation would even make it possible to prosecute foreign students who do not maintain the legally mandated course load (something which we all know happens at NYU because of bureaucratic snafus every semester). Finally, any American citizen who is found "guilty" of helping an undocumented migrant could also be found guilty of a felony--even if the assistance was purely humanitarian (and since we don't often ask for proof of citizenship before offering food, first aid, or helpful conversation, there is a good chance this provision could turn into a restriction on helping anyone who looks or sounds Latino/a or Asian).

Let's just imagine the impact this will have on higher education. Students without documents, even those who spent most of their lives in the United States, will no longer be able to attend college--even at the inflated tuition rates many now pay. International students in the U.S. on student visas would have to worry about being imprisoned on felony charges and later deported merely for taking one credit too few or for needing an extra semester to finish a dissertation while the bureaucratic wheels turn in the INS. American students, faculty, and staff who help out by providing a couch or a warm meal to their visa-overstay friends could get thrown in the brig too. It seems to me that this legislation would either cause the number of international students seeking an education in the United States to fall precipitously (making their own educations and those of their classmates suffer), or else will result in a dampening of intellectual curiosity among international students as they rush to get their degree as quickly as possible to as to avoid these draconian penalities.

Riled up yet? There are protests in towns and cities across the U.S. for you to join. In New York, you can join New York City public school students as they walk out of class at Noon on Monday, April 10th, meet in Union Square from Noon until 2, and rally at City Hall from 3 to 7. The organizers ask that attendies where white to show their solidarity and encourage students to wear signs saying "A10" during the morning before the walkout to show their intent to participate.

NYU: For Rich People Only?

2006-04-04T10:07:00.000-04:00

Today's InsideHigherEd.com has an article about our strike which includes interviews with a number of GSOC members. The article points out the importance of the political support GSOC is building from local and state politicians and quotes Richard Boris, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, at City University of New York’s Hunter College, as saying that our persistance coupled with this political support has a good chance of winning us a contract. The article also quotes Elizabeth Bunn, secretary-treasurer of the UAW, talking about the fact that our fight is a national fight.

Nerds think that the tone of the article feels a lot like the tone of the strike right now. We are tired--often exhausted. That makes us sound depressed sometimes. But we are still excited about what we are doing for ourselves and for graduate employees across the country. And we keep on beleiving that some combination of our persistance and our political support will help us win. Our strike may be the longest strike of graduate employees in history, but you still never know when you will win until you do.

Meanwhile, NYU has been busy finding more people to screw over: The Washington Square News reports that NYU is increasing the cost of tuition by 5.3% (the fifth year in which tuition increases are over 5%. This increase brings the annual total cost of tuition, fees, room, and board (a number which does not include books, incidental expenses, travel, etc.) to almost $47,000. The WSN also reports that NYU is the university at which students are most disatissfied with financial aid. This is all happening while schools like Harvard and other elite colleges are guaranteeing full tuition scholarships for low-income students, while other colleges and universities are making an unprecidented committmment to ensure access for poor and working-class students by granting that these students' financial needs will be completely met.

Hmmm...it seems like NYU wants to make sure it is a bastion for the rich and the privilaged, from undergraduates all the way up through Ph.D. students. Well, we aren't going to let them.

Sexton at the UN, Again

2006-04-01T20:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, John Sexton spoke at the United Nations for the second time in 2 months. This appearance was sponsored by the Institute for International Education, was part of a conference on "best practices in internationalizing the campus," and Sexton himself spoke about creating a global campus.

As usual, Sexton does not seem the best choice to speak about building an international vision when he has worked consistantly all year to undermine the educations of international graduate students NYU.

Gothamist pointed out NYU's lack of ethics today, in the context of the antiquities gift/scandal. NYU just keeps getting the bad press from all sides. You'd think they'd want to avoid looking so bad all the time.

In any case, it's been awhile since Nerds have asked for your donations to help feed, clothe, and house striking workers. Donations of any amount are welcome; big ones especially so.

Rat Patrol

2006-03-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

For all you inflatable rat lovers out there, check out The Rat Patrol flickr pool! It even features some shots of GSOC's very own. More coverage at Gothamist.

(photo courtesy of abracapocus, via The Rat Patrol pool)

Don't mess with the rat, yo.

NYU: Most Loathsome New Yorker

2006-03-30T20:21:00.000-05:00

The New York Press has released its 2006 list of "the most loathsome New Yorkers." Nerds think NYU should start touting its position on this list the way touts its success in other rankings schemes: earning two of the top ten positions on this list!

Sexton is number 7 on the list of 50, and he earned his position in large part through his refusal to bargain a new contract with GSOC.

And NYU Trustee Larry Silverstein is number 2, loosing out only to Bruce Ratner in loathsomeness (if only NY Press realized Silverstein was part of NYU, maybe he could have made his way to number 1).

Want to make sure Sexton gets what's coming to him? Through April 1, you can vote for most loathsome New Yorker.

Update on Ontario Strike

2006-03-29T23:43:00.000-05:00

The strike of teaching faculty at Ontario colleges, which Nerds first discussed a few weeks ago, ended this week with an agreement to seek arbitration for the contract dispute.

However, the three-week-long strike had a casualty: one striking faculty member, John Stammers, died this weekend from injuries sustained after being hit by a car while on the picket line (Nerds thank a reader from Duke University for bringing this to our attention). Police have said that no charges will be forthcoming, which is a controversial decision.

Strikes are hard things, for all the people who take part in them. We face risks every day, be they to our financial well-being; our mental and emotional condition; our relationships with friends, family, and co-workers; or our lives and limbs. John Stammers knew he was taking risks by being on the picket line for a cause he beleived in, though he didn't expect it would lead to his death. Nerds hope his example can inspire others to take some smaller risks to fight for the rights of all workers to unionize.

NYU's Dirty Money

2006-03-29T00:46:00.000-05:00

GSOCers have been working hard to get the word out to prospective students about NYU's union-busting tactics by leafleting the tour groups that happen to leave from a building right next to the picket line. On Monday, we told prospective students and their parents that 84.5% of NYU's general education classroom hours are taught by graduate teaching assistants. Some of the tour attendies were receptive to our message. Others acted as if they had been warned inside the information session that if they talked to us their darling little children might get sent away to *gasp* attent a state university.

While we are at it, Nerds would like to point out NYU's love of dirty money. $200 million of dirty money later, and yet we still don't have a contract?

News Updates

2006-03-27T15:35:00.000-05:00

The Washington Square News notes GSOC's presence at the Triangle Shirtwaist memorial/rally on Friday. This article contains an interesting comment from Josh Taylor, the current anti-GSOC go-to for NYU and the VP for web communications, suggesting that GSOC didn't understand the purpose of the event as memorial rather than political while other speakers did. Since he is also quoted in the article as saying that NYU officials do not attend the rally (which seems unfortionate, given NYU's ownership of the factory building and the memorial purpose of the event), Nerds think it pretty sad that he spoke without recognizing that all the other labor union activists at the event viewed it as a time to advocate for continued improvment in union organizing rights and working conditions in NYC and the US. The story was picked up by Laborstart.

Indymedia, on the other hand, picked up Nerds' own coverage of the memorial/rally. And Political Cortex, a democratic blogging community, related the history of the fire and its connection to GSOC's struggle and strike. The Political Cortex story, including the references to GSOC, was picked up by Daily Kos and Daily Gotham.

Triangle Shirtwaist, In Memorium

2006-03-24T15:37:00.000-05:00

Today, Nerds attended a city-wide labor rally held in honor of the 147 people (mostly Italian and Jewish immigrant girls and young women) who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 95 years ago. These deaths would have largely been prevented if basic safety precautions had been taken, such as keeping all exit doors unlocked, having sturdy fire escapes, and having sprinkler systems.

The building in which the factory was housed is now an NYU classroom building. NYU frequently refers to the tragic story of the building in alumni newsletters and documents about campus history, often using the occasion to highlight NYU's supposed commitment to progressive politics and workers' rights. But as so many speakers at today's event pointed out, that only heightens the irony as NYU continues to deny the workers of GSOC our own labor rights.

The rally and memorial was organized by UNITE-HERE, and labor activists from that union as well as GSOC, the NYC Teachers' Union, and the TWU spoke alongside elected officials about the importance of a strong labor movement for protecting workers' rights and workers' lives. Our struggle got shout-outs and support from Unite-Here!, from Roger Toussaint of the TWU, and from Christine Quinn, Speaker of the New York City Council--and many GSOCers were there with banners and signs to make sure that the assembled crowd of NYU personnel; curious passersby; union members from AFT, TWU, UNITE-HERE, SEIU, and the Firefighters Union; and lots of New York City public school children knew about our cause.

For more information on the fire and the changes in the legal and regulatory environment surrounding the workplace, visit the excellent exhibit from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.

The Casualization of the Academic Workforce

2006-03-23T12:16:00.000-05:00

Get-Up, the graduate employees' union at the University of Pennsylvania, has released a report on the casualization of academic work at Penn. The report shows that graduate employees teach 67% of recitations, while less than 20% are taught by full-time employees. Similarly, 52% of laboratory sections are taught by graduate employees. And in terms of stand-alone class sessions, graduate employees taught 10%, while full-time employees taught about half of class sessions, with tenure-track faculty teaching only 2 out of 5. And this is only counting courses in core academic departments at Penn--not departments in engineering, nursing, business, or continuing education.

Graduate employees are obviously central to the functioning of the university, and the core role of tenure-track faculty is obviously not the instruction of undergraduates. And while this data is not available for NYU, there is no reason to think it is any better.

Back from Spring Break

2006-03-21T12:22:00.000-05:00

NYU's spring break was last week, meaning that the picket line was empty like the campus was. But GSOC found ways to keep the pressure on even when no one was around. GSOCers leafletted trustee Martin Liptin's office and confronted the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. GSOC also visited an alumni event at the Baltusrol Golf Course in Springfield, NJ, where passersby offered their support. Alumni took fliers to pass around inside the event. GSOC members have also returned to Albany as part of a UAW group meeting with state Assembly Members and and Senators.

On Monday, when the picket line started back up with lots of drums and chanting, lots of people stopped by to offer their support and take a button or a sticker. We also talked to members of many tour groups of prospective students. Apparently and unsuprisingly, tour or information session leaders are telling parents and prospective students to ignore the noisy people they encounter on the tour (Nerds can not imagine being a prospective student and not wanting to know what the picket line was about). But strikers were able to get the attention of parents and students when they were told that classes have not met because of the strike, and many took our fliers after hearing this.

Another Academic Unionization Campaign

2006-03-20T15:06:00.000-05:00

According to today's Chronicle of Higher Education, staff at the Montpelier, VT campus of the Union Institute and University voted last week to form a union (37 of 41 elligible voters were in favor). Issues important to the new union members include participation in decision making, pay increases, and vacation/sick leave. The administration has officially stated its intention to bargain in good faith.

GSOC is perhaps the flagbearer for this movement of unionization of academic employees, but we are not at all alone. Everywhere you look there are academic employees fighting for the right to unionize, just as we are.

Press Updates

2006-03-17T16:04:00.000-05:00

The Washington Square News has an article on fired/blacklisted
GAs' attempts to navigate NYU's unclear grievance procedure. The article
quotes Joanna Holzman as she explains that NYU's grievance procedures are not substitute for a union contract. The story was picked up by TMCnet, a publishing outfit focused on technology.

The Washington Square News also carried a letter from Joanna Holzman about the lobbying trip to Albany, which makes clear that GSOC requests to deny state funds to NYU will not imperil undergraduate financial aid.

An article in the Downtown Express covering a town hall meeting in NoHo with elected officials highlighted some NYU-related issues. In response to a call from local historic preservationists for NYU to be asked to focus development energies away from the Village area, Scott Stringer (Manhattan Borough President) agreed to hold a meeting on the subject and said the meeting would also focus on NYU's response to GSOC and our strike. Bob Cohen (a Community Relations Consultant for NYU) tried to pretend that NYU has good relations with many employee unions and trotted out the same rhetoric about "whether [we] are workers or students."

A bit out of date, but Nerds' readers may be interested in viewing video of the picket line.

Finally, Nerds would like to celebrate a milestone: we have broken onto
the first page of Google listings. Thank you to our loyal readers (and especially our loyal linkers) for helping us get there.

Academic Labor: The Front Lines

2006-03-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

(Nerds wanted to post this yesterday, but Blogger aparently decided we were a spam blog and we had to fix the problem. Our apologies for the delay.)

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, faculty members at Kaplan University (a for-profit university enrolling 50,000 students and owned by the Washington Post) are currently trying to form a union. The University employs about 110 full-time and 1,500 part-time faculty, and the UAW is involved in the organizing campaign.

Important issues in the unionization campaign include pressure to inflate grades and look the other way at plagiarism or cheating. In addition, former faculty members allege that they have been fired simply for receiving an average course evalation score below 4 on a 5-point scale in one course or for writing and circulating emails critical of the University administration.

The Faculty Senate has urged faculty not to support the union, using language suspiciously familiar to GSOCers: "Although we respect the right of faculty to voice an opinion about the university's governance structure, we also want to make clear that doing so in such a manner runs some real risks and may well be an unwise course of action...Creating a partisan or adversarial faculty union runs the real risk of reducing trust between the administration and faculty and therefore limiting the nature, scope, and efficacy of constructive rational dialogue."

You can read the rest of the story (it's very long), but you may need subscriber access.