NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
GRAD STUDENT STRIKE

From the Washington Square News (thanks to Democracy Now for letting me know this is going on):

More than 600 supporters of the graduate students’ union, including several hundred graduate students, noisily started off an all-university strike in front of Bobst Library yesterday.

The strike follows months of attempts by union organizers to convince the university to voluntarily recognize the union. A National Labor Relations Board decision in 2004 removed NYU’s legal obligation to negotiate with the graduate students’ union, Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers.

From early in the morning until the late afternoon rains, the demonstrators banged on drums, blew whistles and held up signs, several of which read, “UAW on Strike,” “Nerds on Strike” and “NYU Bargain Now.” Strikers also held up “wanted” posters of Provost David McLaughlin and Executive Vice President Jack Lew, and they put up a giant inflatable rat — a symbol used by labor organizers to denote union-busting and a lack of willingness to negotiate on the part of the employer — in front of the library.

When NYU President John Sexton approached Bobst to get to his 12th-floor office at 9 a.m., he was met with chants of “shame on you” from protesters.

“We’re going to get through this,” Sexton said when he left the library later that morning.

Sexton said the university has no plans to meet with union representatives.

Click here for more.

If you don't already know, universities across the land use graduate students as academic labor. Generally, it's a pretty good deal: grad students get to do some work in their field of expertise, and are able to earn some much needed money to defray living expenses; often there is some kind of tuition cut or waiver handed out with these "assistantship" positions. I've got such a deal myself here at LSU. I teach an intro-to-acting class and I'm the company manager at Swine Palace, the university's professional theater company. I also get a massive tuition reduction. Like I said, it's a good deal, and I have absolutely no complaints. Really, I'm pretty lucky. The work isn't hard, and I like it. My boss at the theater is really cool.

However, not all grad students are as lucky as I am. I've heard horror stories about research assistants being so overworked that their studies suffer--obviously that's bad because study is the reason people go to graduate school in the first place. Make no mistake about it: graduate assistants are workers, just like any other workers--don't let the Ivory Tower thing fool you. A few years ago, graduate assistants at Yale were feeling the squeeze and were able to successfully unionize in order to get some collective bargaining going, which has obviously inspired grad students at other schools. It's very interesting to note that the Yale grad student union has sent some people to help protest at NYU.

At any rate, despite my comfy work situation at LSU, I have a great deal of sympathy for these strikers in New York. Really, without a union, they have no power, and no power means they are open for abuse if that's the way the administrative winds are blowing. Consequently, I wish my brother graduate assistants the best.

Go get 'em, guys.

Photo courtesy of the Washington Square News

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