On Monday, our Bargaining Committee met with NYU for our 11th session to negotiate our next contract. We are pleased to have reached a tentative agreement on our Posting article, which outlines NYU’s responsibilities with regard to the transparent posting of openings for grad worker employment positions. We’re eager to reach agreements on more articles, but NYU has been slow to engage on proposals that would create basic, common sense provisions that would greatly benefit grad workers and the NYU community at large.
By proposing a package structure in our last session, we sought to reach tentative agreements on the articles Grievance & Arbitration, Discipline & Discharge, and Union Officers & Meetings. We are disappointed that NYU declined to engage with the structure of this proposal, as these articles would afford us basic security from unfair discipline and contract violations, and would improve our ability to educate members. For example, their team did not agree to a basic provision that would guarantee time for members of our union to speak during orientations, a practice that would help new grad workers navigate the university and better understand their own employment conditions, at no cost to NYU. Our committee highlighted peer institutions that dedicate time to graduate worker unions during orientation and emphasized the advantages of stronger member education. Being able to communicate information about topics like benefits and procedures to new members is critical for ensuring that grad workers can avoid needless confusion and have the best possible experience when they start working at NYU. The university’s team has indicated that they will consider our proposal.
NYU confirmed that they will be bringing a counter to our Academic Freedom proposal at the next session. Our proposal, if implemented, would bring improved protections for free speech and greater agency for graduate researchers.
We also advanced a proposal on Professional Conditions that provides reasonable guarantees for basic workplace resources – like library access, meeting space, and storage – which would allow grad workers a greater ability to carry out our work efficiently. In previous sessions, NYU has said that contract provisions around these resources are not necessary, claiming grad workers have access to necessary resources in their capacity as students. But grad workers know the all-too-familiar disruptions of inconsistent access to facilities, workspaces, and materials. Our union is determined to reach an agreement that ensures an adequate working environment, and we hope NYU will agree to fair professional conditions.
By declining to fully engage on these topics, NYU is falling short of standards that benefit grad workers in institutions around the country. Our committee took the opportunity to highlight the many institutions with similar provisions that afford grad workers the necessary support to do our jobs.
On Monday, September 28, our Bargaining Committee had its tenth bargaining session with the University. We’re eager to make progress in our negotiations. Though NYU’s bargaining team has also expressed a desire for progress, to our dismay, their responses to several of our proposals have done just the opposite, impeding progress.
In an effort to make meaningful headway in our negotiations, we proposed a package of proposals that included Grievance & Arbitration, Discipline & Discharge, and Union Officers & Meetings. Given that GSOC is the first union many of us have been a part of, it’s critical that GSOC reps and stewards be able to attend school and department orientations to make sure everyone is aware of their rights as union members. Our proposal here would allow just this. NYU’s bargaining team said that they would seriously consider this proposal. We are hopeful we might be able to make progress next session that would allow us to move on to other topics.
We also reasserted our AI proposal, which to our dismay NYU’s bargaining team rejected twice without a counter. We emphasized the urgency of working toward a fair framework for AI in light of its rapid implementation in our working lives and demanded protections from outsourcing. This proposal is especially important in light of the survey NYU recently distributed to undergraduates asking if they would be comfortable with AI graders and tutors. After hearing our explanation for why this proposal is so important, NYU’s bargaining team indicated they’d explore a counter to our proposal.
Additionally, NYU’s bargaining team brought a counter on our Professional Conditions proposal. The administration continues to reject reasonable provisions, such as access to meeting and storage space, that would empower us to do a better job teaching and improve instruction and student experience (like having reserved office hour meeting space on campus). At previous bargaining sessions, TAs have testified to the fact that they have been required to hold office hours in noisy and distracting settings, such as busy coffee shops.
We are bargaining not just to improve our working conditions, but also to make NYU a better University for all. We’re dismayed that NYU has so far resisted common sense provisions that would do just this. However, we’re committed to continuing to negotiate in good faith, and are optimistic that NYU’s team can be moved on this point.
Our next bargaining session will be next Monday, October the 5th at 2pm. Join us to demand that NYU respect graduate workers!
In solidarity,
Liz Muntean, Biology, GSOC Bargaining Committee
Earlier this week, on Monday, July 20, our bargaining committee had its fifth meeting with the University. In this meeting, we heard counter-offers from NYU on our Grievance and Arbitration article, presented our own counter-offer on Non-Discrimination, and finally we demanded that NYU Get Cops Off Campus. If you weren’t able to make it to the session, here are some highlights.
After extensive conversations with GSOC members, our bargaining committee presented our demand to get Cops Off Campus by putting forward significant changes to the existing health and safety article. At various points over the last five years, NYU has recognized that the presence of law enforcement officers, particularly members of NYPD and ICE, poses a significant risk to graduate employees. Yet over the same time period, NYU has continually increased the number of cops on campus while doing very little to actually protect its workers.
In response, GSOC is demanding that the University publicly share any and all agreements they have with law enforcement agencies, disallow law enforcement officers from entering NYU facilities unless forced to do so by law, and refuse to share any information about a graduate employee with a law enforcement agency unless required to do so. Furthermore, our extension of the Health and Safety article would guarantee that in the event that a safety threat is made against the University (like when Black students and faculty were sent threatening emails last fall), workers would have the right to prioritze their own safety and wellbeing.
Next, we heard another counter from NYU on Grievance and Arbitration. GSOC is committed to giving our workers as much time as they need to discover and file grievances. In our previous contract, workers only had 15 days after a grievance had taken place to formally raise a complaint. Often times, those fifteen days would pass before a worker even knew that they could file a grievance. For this reason, our initial proposal to the University was to extend this period to 120 days, ensuring that workers understand their rights and do not potentially face retaliation. NYU first countered with 20 days, so GSOC hit back with 115 days. The University has now come back with an offer of 30 days, but this is simply not enough. The nature of our position as graduate students and employees means that we are especially vulnerable to retaliation from our supervisors; without a meaningful extension of this deadline, our workers may not be safe to protect their rights.
Finally, our bargaining committee is very close to reaching an agreement with the University on a significant expansion of our non-discrimination protections. In a previous session, NYU agreed to include a huge number of new protected classes in our non-discrimination article. That said, they stopped short of including a definition of “bullying,” instead pointing to their own anti-bullying policy. This is a tactic they have used multiple times already. By pointing to their own policy, NYU is able to appear even handed, when in reality they can (and have) changed their policy without any input from workers. In response, our bargaining committee proposed an article that would guarantee us the right to review policy changes before they take effect and bargain with the University to mitigate any negative effects.
This fifth bargaining session was hugely success, and GSOC is continuing to show up each time to demand better benefits and protections for our workers. If you want to come to the next session, it will be on August 3rd at 2 p.m., both on zoom and in person. See you there!
On Wednesday, June 24th, our bargaining committee had its third bargaining session with NYU. We started the session by agreeing to a common set of ground rules and clearly ensuring that we can have as many observers in the room as we want. This means there will always be room for you at future bargaining sessions, including our next session on Monday, July 6th at 2 p.m.
This session we presented the results of our Initial Bargaining Goals to NYU. We developed these four goals over the summer by talking with and surveying members in order to figure out what you want in the new contract. On Wednesday, we showed NYU that a growing majority of GSOC members voted YES on our goals, giving our Bargaining Committee a clear mandate to fight for these protections at the table.
Our Initial Bargaining Goals are:
- Fair wages for fairly defined work
- Real dental, vision, and health care
- A safe and democratic workplace
- Union membership for all
We also opened three more articles, two of which are brand new. First, we proposed a critical expansion of our existing non-discrimination article. These new additions will prevent workers from being targeted for their ethnicity, ancestry, gender transition status, medical condition, criminal history, immigration status, and political activity. Furthermore, this expansion will prohibit NYU from retaliating against any workers who claim that their rights have been violated.
The second article we opened will allow Union representatives to access campus in order to ensure that NYU is fairly administering our future contract.
Finally, we proposed a brand new article dedicated to protecting graduate employees’ academic freedom in the classroom. This new article would protect workers from censorship, retaliation, and coercion when they are designing, teaching, or grading a course. Many other employees at NYU have these protections, but as of now, GSOC members DO NOT.
In addition to opening new articles, we received three counter-proposals from the University, all of which failed to meet the needs of our workers. In response to our demand that graduate employees be able to print class materials for free, NYU instead argued that “supervisors” should make that decision rather than trusting graduate workers.
NYU also refused to increase the amount that workers are paid for pre-semester training days. When asked why the University is unwilling to fairly compensate workers for this training, lead negotiator Howard Pripas said that $150 has been “enough incentive” for workers to complete their training. But this money is not about incentivizing workers, it is about compensating them for the time and labor they spend meeting training requirements.
Additionally, NYU refused to meaningfully extend the amount of time that a worker has to file a grievance. Currently, a worker must file an official grievance within fifteen days of an incident taking place; last session, GSOC proposed that this limit be increased to 120 days, allowing our workers to finish a semester before having to file a grievance. NYU countered with only a paltry five day extension, meaning that GSOC members would still have fewer days to file a grievance than other workers at NYU do. This is unacceptable.
Finally, the University refused to respond to our union’s proposals about AI protections, fair job-posting requirements, and adequate tabling time outside of orientation events.
GSOC workers have clearly demonstrated what our priorities are for this new contract. Already, NYU is failing to recognize and adequately respond to these demands.
This campaign is not a sprint; it is a marathon. This third session was a great example that in order to win better protections, better wages, and a safer workplace, we have to keep showing up day in and day out. Our next bargaining session will be July 6th at 2 p.m., we’d love to see you there!
Yesterday, our Bargaining Committee and GSOC observers met with NYU for our second bargaining session! Ramping up negotiations for our next contract, the Committee opened several articles for bargaining with the University, including articles related to: artificial intelligence, discipline and discharge, grievance and arbitration, and professional conditions for student workers across our union and NYU.
Some significant changes that are currently on the bargaining table include:
- Protections surrounding the use and reach of generative AI while performing our jobs and in our workplaces.
- Increasing the daily compensation for required pre-semester training related to our jobs, which is currently set at $120 per day.
- Expanding the time period during which student workers can present a grievance to NYU from 15 days to 120 days after a grievance takes place or is discovered.
- Guaranteeing access to digital and physical infrastructure necessary to our jobs and work (printers, Zoom, email, NYU building and library access, all-gender restrooms, private workspaces, Microsoft Office Suite, etc.)
- Codifying the right to have several union representatives present for members’ grievance arbitration proceedings.
Already, the Committee’s proposals have faced some pushback from NYU’s lawyers, including regarding protections and access to tools and infrastructure that are essential to effectively and safely performing our jobs as student workers.
This is why it’s incredibly important that GSOC continues to show up for meetings! The Bargaining Committee is thankful to everyone who has already made a point of attending the last two sessions, providing necessary insight and expertise during caucus sessions, and showing NYU that we are a strong union.
If this is exciting to you and you want to get more involved, be sure to keep an eye out for information on our next bargaining session, where we expect NYU to respond to these proposed changes.
All GSOC members in good standing are invited to observe our bargaining sessions and participate in the private, GSOC-only caucuses we hold during these sessions in order to discuss negotiations in real time.
The Bargaining Committee looks forward to seeing you all there!