Bargaining and Strike Update- April 26th

Dear Fellow Member,

Yesterday was the first day of our strike! We kicked off our virtual and in person picket line together with hundreds of grad workers and supporters who joined us in our fight for a fair contract. Our bargaining committee also met with NYU for the first bargaining session during the strike.

Join us TODAY on the picket line outside Bobst library! We’ll be there every weekday from 10am-2pm, until a fair contract is won. 

At the picket line today, members of our bargaining committee responded to NYU’s approach to bargaining, and asserted that a living wage and basic workplace protections are not unreasonable demands. 

We listened to a teach-in on the history of institutional racism and policing at NYU, and NYC mayoral candidate Dianne Morales marched with us on the picket line in solidarity with our strike. 

After a full day of picketing, our bargaining committee met with NYU. Despite the moves we made last session, NYU brought forward no counter proposals on compensation or tuition waivers. 

In an attempt to make progress, GSOC’s bargaining committee also presented a package deal to try to get NYU to accept our proposal for 6 weeks of paid parental leave with an eligibility requirement of only 1 prior appointment (NYU’s current proposal includes a 2-semester eligibility requirement). According to the package deal we put forward, if NYU accepted our parental leave proposal, we would accept NYU’s offer on vacations, bargaining unit lists, and sick and bereavement leave, as well as  dropping our proposals for a housing stipend and for compensation of the bargaining committee. NYU said they needed more time to consider this proposal.   

GSOC’s bargaining committee also responded to NYU’s proposal for mediation (look out for a quick explainer about mediation in your inbox!). While GSOC’s bargaining committee has previously deemed mediation unstrategic, we indicated our openness to mediation at this stage of negotiations, with the following conditions: 
  

1) That there would be no postponement, pause, or end to the strike.

2) That we use Todd Austin, the federal mediator assigned to our contract, rather than a private mediator.

3) That GSOC’s meetings with the mediator and joint mediated bargaining sessions with NYU  would remain open to our rank and file members.

NYU responded by continuing to ignore our compensation and tuition waiver demands, refusing to negotiate on them despite the fact that we significantly amended these proposals. NYU also requested time to consider our proposal for a federally assigned mediator, but agreed to conditions 1 and 3 of our terms.

The next bargaining session will be THIS Thursday 4/29 at 1pm. See you on the picket line, and keep checking our strike hub for updates!

Special thanks to all the grad workers, undergraduate supporters, musicians, and community allies who came out today in support of our strike.

 
In Solidarity,
GSOC-UAW LOCAL 2110