On Monday when our colleagues Karla Rodriguez and Anne DeWitt wrote to you about the upcoming union election on February 27 and 28, the NYU administration was still in the process of finalizing some logistical details. Today we are excited to share with you the full details of when and where you will have the opportunity to vote for Contract Faculty United – UAW to collectively bargain with the NYU administration over topics like our academic freedom, job security, pay, and other job conditions.
We will have the opportunity to vote for our union on February 27 and 28 from 8am to 7pm. Polling locations will be in Kimmel room 405-406 and 5 Metrotech room LC 400 4th floor. (Note that the voting will be uninterrupted and will not have a lunch break.) You can vote in either location. Everyone receiving this email is eligible to vote. Voting will be by secret ballot and will be overseen by a neutral third party, the American Arbitration Association. You will need to show a photo ID to the AAA representative overseeing voting (either your NYU ID or a government ID will work). CFU-UAW tried to arrange for options beyond in-person voting, but it is atypical for union elections to make use of hybrid voting methods, and in this case the NYU administration was unwilling to accommodate our request.
Share why you’re voting UNION YES for Contract Faculty United – UAW!
If a majority votes yes in the election, the NYU administration has committed to bargaining a contract in good faith. That means that for the first time, contract faculty will have the opportunity to sit down as equals with the administration and negotiate over how to improve our jobs. Investing in us is an investment in our students — and indeed in all of New York University.
If a majority votes yes in the election, we will be forming the largest union of private university, full-time, non-tenure track professors in the country. But while we’ll be blazing a path forward for higher education, we won’t be alone. About a quarter of all active UAW members work in higher ed. At NYU, we’ll be joining our adjunct and grad worker colleagues in the UAW. Nationally, we’ll be joining about 100,000 academic workers who have already joined UAW and who have won strong contracts that improve and protect their jobs. And we’ll be joining a vibrant academic labor movement that has been growing quickly at private and public universities alike. We will be standing beside hundreds of thousands of other professors who have come together to improve their pay and benefits and defend higher education from attacks by administrators, donors, and politicians.
If a majority votes yes in the election, our next step will be to democratically elect a bargaining committee made up of our NYU contract faculty colleagues from across the university. Together, we will set our bargaining priorities and negotiate an agreement with the administration. Any agreement will only go into effect if we vote to approve it. To enforce that contract, we will elect union officers and stewards from among our colleagues, accountable to ourselves.
On February 27 and 28, we will have the chance to make history — at NYU and in the country. Vote yes.
Best,
Ingrid Paredes
Industry Assistant Professor
General Engineering
Tandon School of Engineering
Adam Meyers
Clinical Associate Professor
Computer Science
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
CFU-UAW Organizing Committee
