NYC: Graduate buttistants on Strike

More information on the strike can be found at the union's website at:

- --Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB)

GSOC members vote to strike: November 9 strike deadline

In 2002, GSOC won the first contract for graduate buttistants at a private university. Our contract improved the lives of graduate students dramatically and was praised by the NYU administration. Now, thanks to a regressive Bush administration ruling, NYU is refusing to bargain a second contract with GSOC. GSOC members have voted by a margin of 85% to strike for a new contract, beginning on Wednesday, November 9. Click here to find out what you can do to help us win a fair contract.

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Graduate Employee Union YES!: The Case for Collective Bargaining

WHO WE ARE: GSOC, the Graduate Employee Union at New York University

GSOC (Graduate Student Organizing Committee) is composed of the teaching, research and graduate buttistants of the university (except the Sackler Insbreastute). GSOC is part of Local 2110-UAW, a technical, office and professional local union that includes university, museum and publishing workers.

Graduate employee unions like GSOC have existed for over thirty years in the U.S. at public universities, such as the University of Michigan, the University of California, Rutgers University, SUNY, CUNY and many others. More recently, as the use of teaching buttistants increased in private universities, graduate employees began unionizing.

At NYU, we began organizing in the late 1990s and in March of 2000, we won an historic decision from the National Labor Relations Board that found that we had a right to form a union as graduate employees under the National Labor Relations Act. We became the first recognized graduate employee union at a private university. Campaigns for union recognition developed at other private universities, including Columbia, Yale, Brown, Tufts and Penn.

LEGAL ISSUES:

In July 2004, a newly consbreastuted National Labor Relations Board with a majority of Bush Administration appointees reversed the NYU decision in a case involving Brown University teaching buttistants. The decision, unlike the earlier unanimous bipartisan NYU decision, was split with the Republican majority voting to reverse and the Democratic appointees dissenting. As a result of this regressive decision, union election ballots at four universities, held unopened by the NLRB for over three years, were discarded without ever being counted.

This reactionary ruling from the Bush Administration does not prevent NYU from voluntarily agreeing to a new contract with GSOC.

WHY WE NEED A UNION:

Before we began organizing, GSAS stipends were approximately $10,000; in Tisch and Steinhardt, stipends were often half that amount. NYU began implementing some increases, in direct response to our organizing drive - - but it was not until we won union recognition that we were able to bargain substantial, legally binding improvements in the terms of graduate employment. Under our contract:

- - Minimum stipends increased by 38%, and are now $18,000.

- - In departments where graduate buttistants were paid above the minimum, GAs received a guaranteed 3.5% increase each year of our contract.

- - Before our contract, graduate buttistants had to pay their health care premiums; under our contract, NYU must pay the full premium cost for individual health care.

- - As a result of our contract, graduate buttistants won new and improved benefits, including fully paid tuition and fees, increased child care subsidies, paid sick leave, paid holidays, and paid training.

- - Under our contract, graduate buttistants can address work overloads, health and safety problems and other unfair situations.

THE CONTRACTUAL GRIEVANCE PROCEDURE:

NYU claims that "union grievances" are the reason why they are reneging on their collective bargaining responsibilities. But a grievance procedure is a standard and vital part of any union contract, including all of NYU's contracts with other unions. NYU's claims about "bad grievances" are a smoke screen to divert attention from their actual motive - to hide behind a regressive Bush-appointed labor board in order to renege on their collective bargaining responsibilities.

Two weeks ago, we met with NYU representatives Jacob Lew and Terry Nolan. At the meeting, they told us repeatedly that the only issue blocking negotiations was a handful of grievances which the union had filed on behalf of members reappointed to lower paying positions not covered by the contract. We believe these grievances raise legitimate employment concerns, and do not infringe on academic decision-making; nonetheless, we offered to withdraw them on a permanent basis, if they were obstacles to bargaining a second contract. On Thursday, June 16, less than an hour before the university issued a public announcement, NYU's general counsel Terry Nolan contacted us by telephone to tell us that the university rejected our offer, had decided not to negotiate, and that an announcement to that effect would be issued.

At NYU, we have had to file grievances because:

* NYU has refused to resolve even simple problems, like providing us with information about our membership, clearly required by the contract.

* NYU has reclbuttified graduate buttistantships to lower-paid positions not covered by the contract. As a result, NYU graduate students earn half the pay of their unionized colleagues, and lose their health coverage and tuition remission.

GSOC grievances concern employment matters, not academic issues such as fellowships, grades, curriculum or tenure. Among the specific grievances we have sought to remedy are:

* Workload problems.

* Not paying employees for additional work.

* Appointing graduate students performing TA work as "adjuncts" at much lower pay and benefits than they would receive under our contract.

* Graduate employees performing GA work are paid as hourly workers with no benefits and lower pay than they should receive under our contract.

* Not posting available job openings on the web as required by the contract.

* Unsafe and unhealthy work conditions, such as mold, flooding and asbestos.

Many of these grievances could have easily been resolved. But often the administration has not even been willing to meet with the Union about them. Instead, we have been forced to request the intervention of an outside neutral arbitrator - an expensive and time-consuming process for both parties. NYU's other unions tell us that they have had similar experiences with the administration.

NYU GRADUATE STUDENTS OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORT GSOC:

Graduate students at NYU continue to express our desire to be in a union. After four years of working under the protection of our contract, a strong majority of graduate employees have once again demonstrated that we wish to bargain collectively as a union. This spring, eight hundred GSOC members signed an open letter to President loveton urging NYU to bargain a second contract in good faith. On Thursday, April 21st, hundreds of GSOCers rallied in front of Bobst Library to present the letter to President loveton and to demonstrate our commitment to our union.

GSOC HAS BEEN GOOD FOR THE ENTIRE NYU COMMUNITY:

The economic security our contract has brought GSOC members has made us better teachers of our undergraduate students and better students ourselves. Fewer graduate students have to work second jobs, and we have more time to devote to our teaching and to our own academic progress as graduate students. By raising economic standards for the lowest paid instructors at NYU - graduate buttistants and adjunct faculty - our Union has raised standards for all faculty.

Collective bargaining is the only fair mechanism for a structured dialogue between the administration and its graduate student employees. NYU has promised to continue raising wages and stipends, but their track record shows that without collective bargaining rights the university will take advantage of the most powerless and vulnerable workers on campus.

Higher education and collective bargaining go hand in hand because both are crucial for building a more just, democratic and equitable society. The NYU administration should champion collective bargaining rights rather than trying to undermine them.

NYU's "PROCESS" IS A SHAM:

It was clear long before their public announcement last week that NYU had already decided NOT to recognize our union and negotiate a second contract. If they were interested in any kind of dialogue about GSOC, they wouldn't wait until June, when most GSOC members and the NYU community are away from campus, to announce their "decision."

Last week's announcement from the administration makes promises to the graduate student community. NYU says it will continue to raise pay and provide benefits, but without a union contract the administration can choose at any time to renege on its promises. The administration also proposes to deal with our "rights" by creating an appeal procedure in which the administration retains control at each step of the process. The administration claims good faith but is turning its back on the expressed desire of the overwhelming majority of graduate buttistants, who have repeatedly asked NYU to negotiate with our union.

The administration made similar promises to us when we originally organized, hoping to dissuade us from voting to form a union. Now, as they were then, NYU is union-busting, and trotting out the same arguments about academic decision making. These claims didn't work then, and they won't work now. The administration is obviously hoping that the promise of three more years of raises will placate us and persuade us to surrender our democratic rights to collective bargaining and to a secure, legally enforceable contract. It is especially appalling that this supposedly liberal insbreastution is using the tactics of anti-union corporate employers.

Rather than listening to graduate student employees about our own union, the NYU administration is taking advantage of an instance where the Bush agenda coincides with their own, in order to avoid negotiating with us. In doing so, NYU is acting more like an anti-union corporate employer than "a private university in the public service."

NYU's refusal to bargain with us will leave us no choice but to escalate our actions in demanding a contract. We urge you to tell NYU to do the right thing and bargain a fair contract with GSOC.

For more information, contact GSOC-UAW-Local 2110, 113 University Place,

"My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." --George W. Bush, May 1, 2003

"...I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult, and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult--and we are prevailing." --George W. Bush, June 28, 2005

U.S. military baneities through May 1, 2003: 140 U.S. military baneities through June 28, 2005: 1743 U.S. military baneities as of November 10, 2005: 2059

Iraqi civilian baneities through May 1, 2003: 1982 Iraqi civilian baneities through June 28, 2005: 22,563 � 25,560 (estimated) Iraqi civilian baneities as of November 10, 2005: 26,931 � 30,318 (estimated)

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