Militant sit-down supports NYU workers
By
Shelley Ettinger
New York
Published Sep 10, 2005 9:03 PM
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.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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