Union Busting NYU style
In 2000 there was a landmark ruling at the National Labour Relations Board, which granted the right to graduate students to form unions at private universities. In 2004 the NLRB reversed its ruling, now making it illegal to form unions at private universities, stating that:
"Graduate-student assistants, including those at Brown, are primarily students and have a primarily educational, not economic, relationship with their university," the majority wrote. They further found that since the money received by teaching assistants is the same as that received by students on fellowships, it is not "consideration for work" but financial aid.
Because of this ruling, in 2005 when it came time for NYU students to negotiate a new contract, the administration refused to recognize their union, GSOC. This is why graduate students at NYU have been on strike since November 9th.
"The strike is the culmination of tensions that began this summer when NYU announced it would no longer recognize the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, the local affiliate of the United Auto Workers that represents NYU graduate assistants."
Around November 28th, NYU President John Sexton sent out a letter to all striking teaching assistants threatening them with financial repurcussions and blacklisting, should they not return to work by December 5th, which was then extended to December 7th.
Gordon Lafer notes that the threatening sanctions and scare tactics against the teaching assistants and faculty at the university have not been seen since the McCarthy era:
"According to Sexton, teachers who continue striking will be banned from teaching in the spring and will be denied their full salary for that term. Such punitive threats are patently illegal under federal law; while it is permissible to dock the pay of people while they are on strike, it is illegal to ban them from future work as punishment for past strikes.
Sexton further demanded that anyone who takes a teaching job in the spring pledge - as a condition of employment - not to participate in job actions. This type of "yellow dog" contract has been illegal since 1932, when it was banned in legislation authored by New York's own Fiorello LaGuardia, when he was a member of Congress.
Finally, Sexton suggests that those who participate in strike actions but, God forbid, graduate before they can be punished, may have negative assessments attached to their university record when they apply for jobs at other schools. This type of blacklisting has not been seen since the dark days of McCarthyism."
If you believe that graduate students should have the right to form unions, and they possess a dual role in the university as both students and workers, please send a letter to NYU President John Sexton (john.sexton@nyu.edu) or sign the online petition, which now has over 6000 signatures on it:
http://new.petitiononline.com/tosexton/petition.html
To keep up to date on the strike:
http://www.2110uaw.org/
-posted by Dr. Snake Roberts.
"Graduate-student assistants, including those at Brown, are primarily students and have a primarily educational, not economic, relationship with their university," the majority wrote. They further found that since the money received by teaching assistants is the same as that received by students on fellowships, it is not "consideration for work" but financial aid.
Because of this ruling, in 2005 when it came time for NYU students to negotiate a new contract, the administration refused to recognize their union, GSOC. This is why graduate students at NYU have been on strike since November 9th.
"The strike is the culmination of tensions that began this summer when NYU announced it would no longer recognize the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, the local affiliate of the United Auto Workers that represents NYU graduate assistants."
Around November 28th, NYU President John Sexton sent out a letter to all striking teaching assistants threatening them with financial repurcussions and blacklisting, should they not return to work by December 5th, which was then extended to December 7th.
Gordon Lafer notes that the threatening sanctions and scare tactics against the teaching assistants and faculty at the university have not been seen since the McCarthy era:
"According to Sexton, teachers who continue striking will be banned from teaching in the spring and will be denied their full salary for that term. Such punitive threats are patently illegal under federal law; while it is permissible to dock the pay of people while they are on strike, it is illegal to ban them from future work as punishment for past strikes.
Sexton further demanded that anyone who takes a teaching job in the spring pledge - as a condition of employment - not to participate in job actions. This type of "yellow dog" contract has been illegal since 1932, when it was banned in legislation authored by New York's own Fiorello LaGuardia, when he was a member of Congress.
Finally, Sexton suggests that those who participate in strike actions but, God forbid, graduate before they can be punished, may have negative assessments attached to their university record when they apply for jobs at other schools. This type of blacklisting has not been seen since the dark days of McCarthyism."
If you believe that graduate students should have the right to form unions, and they possess a dual role in the university as both students and workers, please send a letter to NYU President John Sexton (john.sexton@nyu.edu) or sign the online petition, which now has over 6000 signatures on it:
http://new.petitiononline.com/tosexton/petition.html
To keep up to date on the strike:
http://www.2110uaw.org/
-posted by Dr. Snake Roberts.
posted by lazylafargue at 10:28 AM
4 Comments:
Hello,
Thanks for posting this. You may be interested in the campaign being waged by UE 150 in North Carolina right now - they're service workers at the university there, where the state refuses to sign any contracts at all. So they're in the same boat as grad employees at public universities. The union there uses what is in many ways a very old union model, and one that might be usefully taken up by others working in the academy. More info, if you're interested, can be found here
http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/newsupdates/news.php?topicid=229&pageID=uenews&pagetype=article
Best wishes,
Nate
Thanks for the heads up Nate. I was not aware of the campaign at North Carolina. The part time casual custodians at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontaro) were facing a similar problem. They had recently formed a union, and instead of outright refusing to negotiate, the university contracted out their jobs. So, although these employees were technically still on the payroll, they were not getting any shifts. Furthermore, the barganining unit was a small one (around 30 people), so the university thought they could do whatever they wanted. The part time casual custodians went on strike at the start of this year, and with the support of some faculty and the greater Hamilton community, they were able to get a contract negotiated where none of their jobs would be outsourced. The only problem is, that in order to get that agreement, they made no gains in terms of wages or benefits.
Hi Snake (or do you prefer I call you Doctor Roberts?), it's me again.
That's rough. Small bargaining units are really difficult because it's hard to have a lot of power, unless one happens to be located at a key point in the production chain, like nurses in cardiac wards, or longshore workers. Big units have all sorts of problems too, of course, mainly to do with working with huge numbers of people. At University of Minnesota, the clerical, technical, and nursing unions (three different AFSCME locals) pushed for simultanesous bargaining, to have more leverage with management. It's a good idea and they managed to get some gains, though not as much as they wanted, out of that strategy. I think that was more a matter of a direction chosen by the leadership, though, than of an organized shopfloor thinking along those lines. What I like about the UE 150 idea is partly that it only really works if there's shopfloor power (so situations like asking for but not getting a strike vote, for example, never come up).
please, call me Snake, last names are much too formal...
i completely agree that simultaneous bargaining is key...the tuition caps on university education are coming off this year in ontario, and there are many fears that this will lead to deregulation campaigns and pushes for privatization...which is a fairly regular occurrence, especially at universities like queen's in kingston...
at the end of august 2006, there are several bargaining contracts coming up at a few ontario universities, mcmaster being one of them, and there will be a push for solidarity across several campuses...
it is going to be a pretty big fight this upcoming year...good thing i have been practicing my DDT, so i can whoop some administrative ass...
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