NYU Graduate Workers Demand Right to Bargain

by James Parks, Apr 27, 2010

NYU graduate assistants rallied for a fair contract in 2003.

After fighting for nearly a decade to gain dignity and respect on the job, teaching assistants, research assistants and graduate assistants at New York University (NYU) are demanding university President John Sexton voluntarily recognize their union within a week or they will ask the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a new union election.

The grad student workers voted to join Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC)/UAW Local 2110 in 2000 and negotiated a four-year contract with the university. That contract expired in 2004 and the university refused to negotiate a new one and ceased recognizing the union.

That same year, the Bush administration’s NLRB reversed a Clinton-administration ruling and abolished federal labor law protections for graduate employees. But nothing in the NLRB ruling prevents NYU and other universities from voluntarily recognizing the union. The ruling also nullified union authorization elections at Brown, Columbia, Tufts and the University of Pennsylvania.

The graduate student employees are encouraged that President Obama’s recent NLRB appointees show the administration’s commitment to ensuring strong voices for workers.  

UAW Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Bunn said: 

Over the last 10 years, a majority of NYU graduate employees have consistently chosen GSOC/UAW for union representation. The university has just as consistently fought their right to join a union. It’s time for NYU to reject its shameful past and join with us in recognizing workers’ rights are human rights.

Bunn is stepping down as UAW secretary-treasurer in June and is transitioning to the AFL-CIO as organizing director.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) joined with a delegation of NYU student workers yesterday to present the workers’ demands to Sexton.

Far more than half of the 1,800 NYU teaching and research assistants have signed authorization cards asking to be represented by GSOC/UAW Local 2110, says John Freudenthal, an NYU research assistant.  

Bob Madore, director of UAW Region 9A, adds:

The teaching assistants and research assistants do work that it critical to the success of NYU. All they are asking for is what other workers at NYU have—the right to collective bargaining. We are proud to stand in solidarity with NYU teaching assistants and research assistants.

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