Militant sit-down supports NYU workers

Well over 1,000 people massed on the south border of Washington Square Park here Aug. 31 to demand full union rights for New York University graduate employees. Members of many New York unions joined workers and students who came from up and down the East Coast to protest NYU’s union busting.

The demonstration was big, loud and angry. It culminated in a sit-down blocking the entrance to Bobst Library, which houses NYU’s administrative offices.

Police arrested 76 people, including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, UAW Vice President Elizabeth Bunn and scores of NYU workers.

NYU President John Sexton had announ ced earlier in the summer that, as of the beginning of the 2005-2006 academic year and the expiration of Local 2110’s first contract, he would withdraw recognition of the graduate employee union. He now refuses to negotiate with Local 2110 for a new contract.

Sexton moved to bust the union after the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate employees are not workers and not entitled to collective bargaining rights. This reversed an earlier ruling.

The original Labor Board ruling had paved the way for legal recognition of Local 2110, also known as the Graduate Student Organizing Committee—and for the first union contract for graduate employees at a private university in the United States.

Graduate employees say they are not going back, regardless of the latest ruling. They are discussing various tactics to force the bosses to back off their effort to bust GSOC.

With the new school year about to start, one of the most popular chants at the rally was, “No contract, no grades.”

The president and two executive committee members from Teachers Local 3882, which represents NYU clerical employees, were taken away in handcuffs alongside graduate employees. Local 3882’s contract is about to expire. Activists expect a difficult fight to hold onto hard-won benefits.

One of the biggest contingents Aug. 31 was from UNITE HERE, mostly Yale University workers. UNITE HERE Gen eral President Bruce Raynor was among those arrested.

This public show of unity was significant, since UNITE HERE boycotted the national AFL-CIO convention in July and is closely aligned with the Service Employ ees and Teamsters unions, which split from the federation. However, other than individual members who showed up on their own, those unions had no visible presence.

The writer is a member of Teachers Local 3882, the NYU clerical workers’ union.