Jessica Lambertson talks about the difficulties of student organizing with a graduate representative of NYU’s Local 2110:
In 2002, New York University graduate student employees made history, becoming the first at any private institution to unionize. But NYU also has a history of administration hostility to grad student organizing. When the contract for the university’s Graduate School Organizing Committee, the GSOC/UAW Local 2110, expired in 2005, the school’s administration denied renewal, arguing that graduate teaching assistants should not be considered employees. With the support of the Bush-era National Labor Relations Board, the school administration denied recognition of the union.
With the likelihood that President Barack Obama will appoint more labor-friendly members to the NLRB, NYU has shifted tactics. In July of this year, the administration announced a graduate-funding restructuring program called FAR-4. The new plan finally deems graduate students who work at NYU employees but classifies them as adjunct faculty, denying grad students their own union representation. In addition, all grad students must now work a full year as a volunteer before they can receive any payment at all. Most graduate-level positions were completely eliminated, leaving students and faculty grasping weeks before the fall semester began, in the midst of a recession.