At our second-to-last spring session, we made some progress on provisions that will increase transparency, improve job security and due process rights, protect our health and safety, and ensure that we’re able to service our contract effectively. However, the administration’s team has so far failed to make meaningful movement on the core protections we’re demanding. Their counter on academic freedom, like so many of their recent proposals, does little more than codify our inadequate status quo. As we keep telling them, an overwhelming majority of contract faculty voted to form this union because we want to improve our working conditions — not just enshrine existing practices.
Review all proposals and counterproposals on our CFU Bargaining Tracker.
In our two major counterproposals, we laid out the problems with current NYU policies for international contract faculty and for contract faculty experiencing workplace discrimination or harassment. We proposed enforceable protections that would ensure fair treatment for all. The administration’s team was unusually attentive during our presentation and conspicuously circumspect afterwards. Were they persuaded by our reasoning? Shamed by our members’ testimony about inadequate lactation support and catastrophic visa-processing errors? That would be nice, and we eagerly await their counterproposals — but we suspect they had another reason. All year, we’ve watched them sit impassive in the face of equally strong arguments and equally horrifying stories. We think that they discovered deference yesterday because they had the largest audience they’ve had all year: sixty contract faculty union members observing negotiations in person and on Zoom.
When we on the Bargaining Committee face the administration’s team with a crowd of engaged members behind us, we’re negotiating from a position of irrefutable strength, and their lawyers have no choice but to listen. We’ve got one more session remaining this semester, and we need to send a clear message: contract faculty across NYU are paying attention, and more and more of us are going to keep showing up until we’ve won the contract we need and deserve.
RSVP to attend our last session of the semester: Friday 5/2 from 1-4 pm.
Our first academic year of contract negotiations has unfolded against a backdrop of unprecedented attacks on higher education and on members of our community. Please RSVP to our town hall this Tuesday April 22 from 7-8 pm to learn more about summer bargaining and how you can get involved in ongoing efforts to defend our profession and protect the most vulnerable among us.
In solidarity,
CFU-UAW Bargaining Committee
Richard Dorritie (Rory Meyers College of Nursing)
Elisabeth Fay (Expository Writing Program, Arts & Science)
Robin Harvey (Teaching and Learning, Steinhardt)
Thomas Hill (Center for Global Affairs, SPS)
Peter Li (General Engineering, Tandon)
Benedetta Piantella (Technology, Culture, and Society, Tandon)
Jacob Remes (Gallatin School of Individualized Study)
Chris Chan Roberson (Undergraduate Film & TV, Tisch)
Jamie Root (French Literature, Thought and Culture, Arts & Science)
Fanny Shum (Mathematics, Courant Institute)
Heidi White (Liberal Studies)