This has been brewing for a while, and it’s set to happen tomorrow. The situation, basically, is this: Under a 2000 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision, graduate students, who teach classes in addition to taking their own, had the right to unionize. They had this right based on the theory that they are both students and employees (duh). Under the Bush Administration, the NLRB was packed with anti-workers’-rights conservatives, who reversed this decision and said that universities don’t have to recognize graduate student unions because graduate students aren’t employees. That’s what gets me most about this situation — the disrespect and head-in-the-sand perspective that would lead one to argue that grad students aren’t workers. They teach classes. They grade papers. They administer tests. They hold review sessions. They do as much work for their classes as any professor does, and they’re paid a pittance in comparison. They’re a blessing for this university, and as a former NYU undergrad who took a handful of recitation sessions with grad students, I’m personally offended that this school would so deeply under-value the contribution of TAs to our education.
My favorite graduate student, whose name I still remember from my freshman year of college (Ailsa Craig, if anyone is interested) was the first person to teach me about the complexities of feminism, and to frame it in a way that was engaging and appealing. I walked into her class not really caring about feminism at all — we filled out questionaires at the start of the semester asking whether or not we identified as feminists, and I definitively circled “no” — and walked out at the end of the semester seeing the world from an entirely different angle. The incredible professor for that class (Rabab Abdulhadi, now, I believe, at UMich) was certainly a defining factor in that development, but it was in Ailsa’s small-group discussions that everything really came together. I have no doubt that she’s long forgotten who I am by now, since I didn’t say much, and what I did say was probably pretty ignorant. But I haven’t forgotten her, and what she taught me was so incredibly formative in my identity that I’m outraged at the university’s refusal to allow her and her colleagues the basic organizing rights that should be afforded to all workers. Teachers matter, and graduate students who teach are employees deserving of recognition.
Of course, universities still have the option of recognizing graduate student unions — it’s just a matter of whether or not they continue to do so. NYU so far has been willing to go halfway, but not to fully recognize the grad union and allow them fair bargaining power. More from the grad union is here.
This story is getting coverage far and wide. Even the Freepers are on it.
At this point, NYU administration is not negotiating with graduate students at all, and the strike is inevitable. I’m not really affected by it because I don’t use main NYU buildings, and graduate students don’t teach any of my classes; I also won’t have to cross picket lines to get to class. But hopefully I’ll have some free time tomorrow, and will be able to join them in protesting. Lindsay Beyerstein will apparently be down in my neck of the woods today, and anyone else who can take a few hours to come and join the demonstration tomorrow and until the strike ends would certainly be appreciated. You can read one grad student’s opinion here.