Last February, we introduced a contract proposal on Intellectual Property Rights, in keeping with our initial bargaining goals, which include “full ownership of our intellectual property” as a core academic freedom protection. In March, the NYU administration informed us that they were rejecting our proposal, in light of imminent updates to the university-wide intellectual property policy. We reminded them that intellectual property is a term and condition of employment, and that they are therefore obligated to bargain over this subject; they agreed.
When they sent us the draft revised policy in early June, we were concerned. In their summary of revisions, the administration asserts that “the treatment of copyrightable works under the revised policy has not changed,” but the policy itself contains several major departures from the status quo — most notably in granting the university a non-exclusive, perpetual, world-wide, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) not only our instructional media but also our traditional works of scholarship.
In late June, we shared these concerns in bargaining and reasserted our initial contract proposal. While the administration acknowledges that intellectual property is a mandatory subject of bargaining, they have been extremely reluctant to discuss the new policy in open session. Transparency is important to us: we have always demanded that our negotiations be open to observation by everyone in our union, and we prefer to avoid sidebars. However, in the interest of making progress on this important bargaining goal, we agreed to a meeting last week.
We hope that the administration will offer a more substantive response at one of our upcoming bargaining sessions. As always, the best way to get them to adopt a more reasonable posture is to demonstrate that large numbers of contract faculty care about this issue. Join us for an important bargaining session where we will tackle a full agenda covering major protections and benefits that affect all of us, alongside Intellectual Property.
RSVP to observe bargaining: Friday, October 10, 9 am – 1pm and Friday, October 31, 10am – 2pm.
If you, like us, are made uneasy by both the content of the proposed policy and the way the administration has sought to implement it, there’s only one thing to do: PACK THE ROOM.
Hope to see you there.
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)