On Monday, NYU announced new salary floors for Clinical and Clinical Associate Professors in the Faculty of Arts and Science, just a few days after Barnard Contingent Faculty-UAW announced a tentative collective bargaining agreement. Under the new agreement, all full-time non-tenure track faculty at Barnard see an immediate 7% salary floor increase, with guaranteed annual increases to the new minimum adding up to a 27% raise over six years, and bringing Barnard’s base salary to $89,000 by 2026.

This isn’t the first time that NYU administrators have been moved to action by negotiations uptown: in April 2017, Barnard contract faculty secured a $60,000 minimum in their first collective bargaining agreement; a month later, our salary floor went up to $60,000. While it’s nice that some of us have benefitted from BCF-UAW’s contract gains, we don’t think that NYU salaries should hinge on bargaining at Barnard — and we know that the NYU administration would much rather keep pace with Barnard than bargain collectively with us.

Contract faculty at unionized institutions are setting new citywide standards, and NYU is paying attention. However, unlike our unionized Barnard colleagues, we are at-will employees, and the NYU administration unilaterally determines all aspects of our working conditions. With collective bargaining, we would bargain as equals to secure meaningful rights and protections, such as equitable compensation for all contract faculty, to ensure that our salaries reflect the rising cost of living in New York City and the tri-state area. 

We are in the midst of a huge wave of academic worker organizing, including a majority of us signing up in support of our union, CFU-UAW. To win recognition and bargain a strong contract, we will need to continue expanding and making more visible our support for CFU-UAW and a real voice at NYU. Click here to get more involved.