On June 25, we held the 13th bargaining session with the NYU administration as we fight for the strong first contract we need and deserve.
The main news is that we came to agreement on occupational safety and health. We won a new standard in an NYU contract, which is that student immunization policy is a matter of faculty health and safety, and that the purpose of university immunization policy is to proactively address emerging health threats. We won the right to grieve if the administration violates state vaccination law or its own immunization policies. That’s on top of other victories in Health and Safety, which guarantees that NYU shall make reasonable attempts to maintain safe working conditions and creates a Health and Safety Committee charged with examining, among other hazards, ergonomics in our offices, classrooms, and other workspaces.
We’re also continuing to make progress on Discipline and Discharge, which is a core topic of our negotiations; the administration brought a new proposal on Wednesday, and we think we’re getting close. We brought a counterproposal on the Union Rights and Access, which is about our ability to enforce our contract; here too we think we’re getting close.
Follow along with negotiations on the bargaining tracker.
Most of today’s session was devoted to back-and-forth on technology, including a special union-management committee on technological change. We re-asserted our proposals to protect faculty data and to protect us and our students against the administration misusing generative AI, for instance to develop new courses or teach courses. We also know that the administration is seeking to change university intellectual property rules, including to claim a perpetual, world-wide, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense!) not only to our teaching materials but also our traditional works of scholarship. So we re-presented our previous Intellectual Property proposal, which would protect our right to control all of our teaching, scholarly, and artistic creations.
We asked the administration when we’d get a proposal about this academic year’s AMI, and they said they will get back to us with a formal proposal. We’re also still waiting on many responses to what we’ve proposed already, including our proposals on shared governance and appointment, reappointment, and promotion.
The administration also needed to check when they were next available to meet to continue negotiations, so keep an eye on your email inbox and our socials. (We’re on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.) We’ll announce the next sessions as soon as we have them scheduled.
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)