NYU Renews its (Insufficient) Offer to GSOC/UAW

The NYU administration has once again reached out with an offer to respect the right of teaching assistants (TAs) to choose GSOC/UAW as our Union, but only if we agree to exclude research assistants (RAs) and withdraw our pending petition at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

As you may remember, NYU made this offer last year as well, which you can read about here and here. We made a practical and reasonable counterproposal: to start bargaining immediately on behalf of all graduate employees except externally-funded RAs, and let the NLRB rule on the bargaining rights of those RAs. NYU declined our offer.

While we are confident in our case in front of the NLRB, NYU does not need to wait for the NLRB to respect our democratic right as RAs AND TAs to engage in collective bargaining. By denying our rights, the administration maintains its ability to make unilateral changes to our working conditions whenever they want, such as the dramatic cuts they made to our health benefits last fall.

NYU also attempted to justify its position in its recent response to the five New York City mayoral candidates who wrote last month urging the administration to respect our majority choice for collective bargaining. NYU’s response included a number of inaccuracies and omissions, which we have clarified in a new document posted to our website.

We remain committed to attempting to resolve any differences we have with NYU on these issues and will keep you posted if anything new develops.