Happy New Year! As we reflect on the progress we made last year and the considerable distance that remains, we on the Bargaining Committee are sure of one thing: your participation made all the difference.
RSVP to observe bargaining on Friday, January 16 at 11:00am
We’ve all been disappointed by the NYU administration’s approach to bargaining. They could have used our negotiations as an opportunity to meaningfully engage with the strong majority of contract faculty who voted to unionize nearly two years ago. In a time of unprecedented attacks on U.S. universities, they could have worked with us to build a fairer, stronger institution and to protect the integrity of the education we offer.
Instead, they’ve been slow to share the important information about our working conditions that they’re legally required to provide. They’ve played games with university policies at issue in our negotiations. Their proposals would weaken NYU’s academic community by narrowing our role to teaching, largely excluding us from shared governance and the academic life of our departments, and offering minimal — if any — support for our scholarly and artistic practices. They have sought to undermine the status quo, for instance by flattening the differences across our schools and disciplines and seeking to ban us from serving as principal investigators. Their few proposed improvements to our jobs have taken the form of paltry one-time raises or buyouts that neither come close to achieving parity with our tenured and tenure-track colleagues nor address the cost of supporting a family in NYC.
The past year has taught us how little respect this administration has for contract faculty and for the work that we do. Luckily, collective bargaining means that their lack of respect matters far less than it once did — and our respect for each other matters far more. 2025 was also the year we turned out in large numbers to protect our profession and stand up for each other. Over half of all contract faculty have observed a bargaining session. We’ve supported our colleagues as they offered testimony about workplace discrimination, inadequate childcare, visa processing nightmares, and more. The administration’s team may not be moved by our arguments, but they move when we show them that we’re prepared to stand together and fight for what we deserve.
We deserve secure benefits, fair workloads, and compensation that reflects our contributions — and the NYU administration can afford to give us all these things. To win them, we’ll need to escalate. Over a hundred of you have already come to an escalation training, and contract faculty from nearly every NYU department have told the administration that we’re prepared to organize towards a strike authorization vote.
We know that 2026 can be the year we win the strong first contract we need and deserve — but it will take all of us. RSVP for an upcoming escalation training.
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)