On Friday, we met with the administration’s bargaining team for three hours — our eleventh in-person bargaining session since we started negotiating for our contract in November. The administration’s team — three lawyers and a bevy of associate deans who don’t speak — weren’t just meeting with the elected Bargaining Committee. On Friday more than five per cent of the whole contract faculty observed in the room or by zoom. In fact, there were so many people there we ran out of chairs.
Review all proposals and counterproposals on our CFU Bargaining Tracker.
Over the past six months, we’ve made some real progress, and that progress is thanks to the fact that the administration moves when there’s an audience. We have now finalized the text of four articles. (Finished articles are called “tentative agreements” or TAs because all agreements remain tentative until we have the full contract and the full membership votes to ratify it.) All of our TA’d articles are somewhat technical, but they’re important for defending our rights and enforcing our contract. On Friday, the administration agreed to our proposals on accessing our personnel files and on sharing basic information with the union. We also came closer to agreement on the ability and right of our union representatives to do their jobs.
But Friday’s session showed that we’re still far apart on some core topics. The administration continued to insist on enshrining only the bare legal minimum protections against discrimination, declining again to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender transition status, caste, or political affiliation, activity, expression, or belief, or to protect against potential judicial rollbacks of civil rights. While they agreed orally that we all have the right to a respectful work environment, instead of commiting to protections against abusive behavior, they suggested yet another committee. They also continued to insist that administrators would maintain sole discretion over what visa they’d sponsor international faculty for, and whether to sponsor them for permanent residence at all. Especially now, this insistence keeps international faculty precarious and vulnerable.
Perhaps most troublingly, the administration’s lawyers hemmed and hawed in response to our questions about the protections guaranteed by their proposal on academic freedom. Would it confer the right to criticize the university? Would it protect what we say and do in our university and professional service? Would it guarantee the right to talk freely about our expertise both inside and outside the classroom? The administration’s lawyers demurred, even when we asked them a couple of times. Shockingly, they would not even clearly answer when we asked if the administration intends to censor library material.
Watch colleagues across NYU explain why academic freedom matters.And there’s still more where we’ve received no answer. We know there’s no real academic freedom when we have to reapply for our jobs every few years, which is why we’re fighting for a contractual presumption of renewal after multiple reviews. The administration has given us no response to that proposal. And we’ve proposed to preserve peer review in appointments, reappointments, and promotions and shared governance of the university — but again, we’ve received no answer.
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One thing is clear, though: when there are a lot of people in the room and on zoom, the administration’s lawyers listen better, they respond more respectfully, and they are more willing to compromise. The way we move the administration isn’t through good arguments or pointed questions at the bargaining table — it’s through everyone demanding the strong contract we need and deserve. We can win what we fight for.
That’s why it’s so important to continue to observe bargaining sessions over the summer. Our next session is Wednesday, May 28, from 1-4pm. Please commit to attending by zoom or in person. And stay tuned for ways to stay involved over the summer as we develop our demands on pay and benefits.
in-person contract faculty observers with our bargaining committee on Friday!
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)