On Friday afternoon, we met with the administration for five hours. We made some progress, but they remain dug in on several core issues, including compensation, workload, and shared governance. They also made no mention of the issues where they are refusing to bargain with us at all — which is to say, they are continuing their pattern of unfair labor practices.
Watch Bargaining Committee members Elisabeth Fay and Benedetta Piantella describe Friday’s session.
Then stand united:
Attend next week’s bargaining sessions
Sign up to join the picket line
What Happened Friday
The administration brought several counters:
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The administration finally agreed to the Recognition article we first proposed on November 1, 2024: to abide by the bargaining unit we all agreed to in the Neutrality and Election Agreement of January 2024 (a negotiation which itself took 10 months).
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In Workload, while they made some movement toward us around the edges, they continue to refuse our fixes in places where workloads are especially unfair (like language departments where faculty teach four days a week for the same salary and course-load as those who teach three days a week, and General Engineering, where faculty teach 5-5 loads). And in other places, like Gallatin, GPH, Nursing, ISAW, IFA, and Finance and Risk Engineering, they are proposing to make workloads considerably worse. Meanwhile, they are rejecting our core proposal that because we already work full time, when we take on something new, we should either be relieved of other work or get extra pay.
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In Evaluations, they took a small step toward us to protect against unfair and discriminatory student course evaluations but remain dug in on the core issue: they insist on flattening the differences in criteria for evaluations that must exist across schools, departments, and disciplines.
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In Grievance and Arbitration, we are in agreement in every place other than one of the most central: the administration wishes to retain final control over grievances related to appointment and reappointment. We think the whole point of a union contract is to put some checks on arbitrary decanal and provostial power.
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In Appointment and Reappointment, the administration came closer to us in some key places. They agreed to end the practice of giving shorter appointments to punish faculty, and they agreed that after we have been successfully reviewed several times, we will no longer have to submit reappointment applications and dossiers. However, we remain far apart in several places, including most notably their continued insistence on ending peer review reappointment and promotion committees and their attempt to hold on to the ability to not reappoint us for any misconduct or poor performance, no matter how minor.
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While they did not bring a counterproposal on Compensation (or indeed any economic article), the administration’s outside lawyer did give us a short speech indicating that they are dug in on the structure of their proposal, which would deny meaningful raises to 73% of us and do nothing at all to fix salary compression and inversion.
What Comes Next
We are about to enter an intense phase of bargaining — we have three scheduled meetings during Spring Break and expect to meet even more than that. It may not be possible to send full bargaining updates after each session, so be sure to watch the Bargaining Tracker, and come to sessions to see for yourself.
We should not expect to know whether we will need to strike until very soon before the deadline. But we want you to know: your bargaining committee is committed to finding places to compromise where we are able and to hold firm where we know it is important. But we also know that we will not win the strong contract we need and deserve through negotiation tactics or good arguments. We will win because all 931 of us are committed to withholding our labor if the administration does not bargain in good faith and settle a fair contract.
What You Can Do Now to Help Win a Strong Contract
The most important thing to do right now is to continue to show the administration that we stand united in our demands: that they stop breaking the law, bargain with us in good faith, and settle the strong contract we need and deserve. To do that, here are four things you should do and one thing you should not do:
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Commit to attending — by zoom or, preferably, in person — at least one bargaining session this week: Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon, or Friday starting at 10am. Strong turnout shows the administration that we, your elected bargaining committee, have a mandate from you, our members, to win what you are demanding.
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Sign up for your picket shifts, especially on Monday and Tuesday. If the administration forces us to strike, it will be crucial to have strong turnout in the early days to show the administration and the entire NYU community the strength of our fight.
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Ask your students, colleagues who aren’t contract faculty, and alumni to send emails to the senior administration and board of trustees with this tool, telling them that what NYU needs now is strong leadership and a fair contract, not the disruption of a strike. You can also share this FAQ for members of the NYU community.
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Follow us on social media and share our posts — especially the videos of students. We’re on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
And the thing not to do: we strongly recommend that you do not fill out the voluntary “attestation form” the administration emailed on Thursday. That form is designed to undermine support for a strike and to learn where the union is weak and strong. Do not give them that advantage!
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)