Labor & campus unite to support NYU strikers

The strike at New York University heated up significantly on Nov. 28 when NYU President John Sexton issued an ultimatum to striking graduate employees: either stop the strike by Dec. 5 or risk losing stipends and teaching assignments for the next two semesters.

NYU strikers rally in Washington Square Park Dec. 7.

“Sexton’s e-mail made it absolutely clear that this fight is not about student rights or academic affairs but about the rights of workers. You simply don’t fire students,” said Maida Rosenstein, president of UAW Local 2110, which represents the 1,200 striking Graduate Student Organizing Committee, at a rally on campus on Dec. 2.

The GSOC has been on strike since Nov. 9 after the university refused to negotiate a second contract with the union. The first contract, signed in 2002, expired Aug. 31.

In a last-minute attempt to sideline the union, NYU’s Graduate Affairs Committee proposed on Dec. 4 that the GSOC call off the strike on Dec. 6, the administration postpone implementing its ultimatum until Dec. 7 and a new organization be set up to speak for the graduate employees. Sexton accepted the proposal.

But the GSOC didn’t. GSOC Chair Michael Palm affirmed that the strike will continue until the university recognizes the graduate employees’ union.

“We’re not on strike for a voice in the university; GSOC is not about to become another university group,” he said in the Dec. 5 issue of NYU’s student newspaper. “GSOC was formed to represent ourselves as university employees. Nothing the proposed group can do will include protecting students on strike. The recent threats of blacklisting are the strongest indication yet that we need a union in order to protect ourselves.”

Support is widespread

Support for the striking workers has come from NYU undergraduate students, alumni and faculty. On Nov. 30 about 150 undergrads organized by Graduate Under graduate Solidarity staged a protest in the lobby of Bobst Library while a group of students tried to deliver a letter to Sexton demanding he negotiate with the GSOC. Other GUS solidarity events that day included a class boycott and a student speakout.

Several recent NYU graduates attended an alumni function on Dec. 1 and urged attendees to withhold donations until the university recognized the union. They also asked alums to send letters telling Sexton to stop union busting, recognize UAW Local 2110 and negotiate now.

A coalition of nearly 200 professors passed resolutions on Dec. 1 stating that they will do everything they can— including canceling recitations, withholding grades, refusing to take part in the graduate admissions process and telling pro spective faculty members that faculty rights are not respected at NYU—to defend the graduate employees. They also issued an open letter to the university calling the ultimatum “an encroachment on faculty rights” and saying that it would “destroy the graduate studies programs.”

But support for the striking workers extends far beyond the campus. On Dec. 2 more than 20 union leaders, both national and local, joined strikers and federal and city politicians at a rally to defend the right to organize and the right to strike. Speakers included UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, New York City Central Labor Council President Denis Hughes and a representative of the Change to Win Coalition. This is the first struggle where the two national groups have joined forces.

“NYU claims it doesn’t have a problem with unions or the labor movement—that it only has a problem with GSOC,” said Palm. “But all these unions are here today to say that labor has a problem with NYU.” GSOC spokeswoman Susan Valentine added, “This is an attack on all workers.”

The GSOC picket line swelled on Dec. 5, the original date of NYU’s ultimatum, as droves of supporters showed solidarity with the strikers.

Another rally, called by the New York City Central Labor Council as part of the nationwide commemoration of Inter national Human Rights Day, is planned for Dec. 7.

Calling Sexton’s ultimatum a “lockout” and a direct challenge to the right to strike, Shelley Ettinger, a member of NYU’s clerical staff and its union, AFT Local 3882, spoke about the importance of the strike both for the ruling class and for organized labor at a Dec. 2 meeting of Workers World Party. Noting that the NYU board of trustees is made up of Wall Street tycoons and real estate moguls, she called the strike a “showdown” for the East Coast ruling class. To hear her report, listen to the podcast or go to the Workers World podcast Web page.