On Wednesday, our lawyer officially filed for arbitration over the NYU administration’s repeated law breaking — its refusal to bargain in good faith over housing and retiree medical benefits, the multiple ways in which it has impermissibly changed our working conditions without bargaining over them, and its attempts to intimidate our non-union colleagues and keep them from supporting us.
Do your students or colleagues have questions about our strike?
Send them this FAQ.
The administration may be breaking its commitment to bargain in good faith, but we are not. Even as we prepare for an unfair labor practice strike if the administration does not cease its bad faith bargaining and settle a fair contract by March 23, we continue to negotiate. We met with the administration’s negotiators on Thursday, March 5, and Friday, March 6.
RSVP for Upcoming Bargaining Sessions
Sign Up For Picket Shifts
>Tentative Agreement
On Friday, the administration finally agreed to the Respectful Work Environment article. At a time when civil rights protections are under national attack, we have won several important victories, including — for the first time ever at NYU — partial protection against caste discrimination; guarantees of disability, pregnancy, lactation, and religious accommodations, and a commitment that contract faculty members may use, and have others use, their preferred names and pronouns. And, after NYU workers and students fought for decades for protections against power-based harassment, contract faculty have finally forced the administration to create a university-wide anti-bullying policy, which is now in effect and guaranteed by our contract. When we fight, we win — not only for ourselves but for the entire university.
Getting Closer
We continue to work to find common ground with the administration. Most of Thursday’s session was devoted to discussion of our Workload article. Yet again, we had to explain the details of how the university works to the administration’s representatives, most of whom haven’t been in a classroom for years. We continue to seek compromise while holding to our core principle: that we have full-time jobs, and that if we are given extra work we should either have work taken away or get paid extra.
On Friday, we came prepared with counterproposals that came closer to the administration:
-
In Grievance and Arbitration, we are resolving technical details like timelines and how a neutral arbitrator will be chosen; we are still insisting on a fair and neutral process to resolve disputes around promotion and reappointment.
-
We combined several of our proposals on Benefits into a single article. We are proposing to cap the employee share of health, dental, and vision premiums where they are, and to cap the dollar amount of any increases at no more than 3% each year. Also included in this article are revisions to our proposals on retirement fund contributions (we propose to enshrine in our contract the status quo that the administration contributes 5% non-elective contribution and an additional 5% matching contribution) and tuition remission (we’re seeking no change to NYU tuition remission and a 50% portable benefit). We also proposed a side letter to make it easier for contract faculty to enroll in degree granting programs at our own university. And we have proposed a benefits committee so that we have a voice when the administration wants to change benefits that we share with tenure-track colleagues.
-
In previous sessions, we agreed to the administration’s preferred way to pay for expanded Family Care Benefits: a fund. On Friday we proposed a fund of $4.65 million per year. While that may sound like a large number, we currently have, in aggregate, at least 310 dependents under the age of 13, and an unknown number of other relatives, like elderly parents, who may also need paid care.
-
We are also coming closer on Professional Development Funds. The administration finally agreed that each of us should have access to individual funds; we are fighting to make sure the funds are of adequate size, that existing funds cannot be decreased, and that we can use them for all our scholarly, creative, pedagogical, or other professional development needs.
We’ll Have To Fight For It
The administration had made it clear that on core issues like our salaries, shared governance, and promotion and reappointment, we will have to fight for what we need and deserve. That’s why we’re preparing to strike.
-
On Friday, the administration brought a proposal on International Contract Faculty Members, rejecting once again our demand that they commit to sponsoring our non-citizen colleagues for the legally appropriate visas of their choice and then for permanent residency.
-
On Thursday, the administration brought only a single counterproposal: on Promotion. While they came closer to us on how grievances could work, they continue to try to excise shared governance from the process, including by making the decision of whether to require external letters one a dean makes at his or her discretion, rather than one made by academics through shared governance. The administration also continues to demand that we end promotion committees that deliberate and together write recommendations to chairs and deans.
-
We gave the administration a counterproposal on Evaluation, which came closer to them on the use of student course evaluations and FARs, but held firm on our core demand that the criteria and method of evaluation must continue to be an academic matter decided through shared governance, and that the contract must allow for differences in disciplines across schools and departments.
-
We know that a resolution to salary compression and inversion is a top priority. An associate professor who has served for 20 years should not be making the exact same as an associate professor who has served only 7. We have proposed a solution to compression now and moving forward, but the administration has steadfastly refused to accept it or propose its own. We are also maintaining (but moving into this article) our demand for a meaningful fix to salary inequity by race and gender. But we made movement on Friday by decreasing our proposed raises for our highest paid colleagues; where before we proposed a minimum raise of 20% for everyone, we now propose a minimum raise of $20,000 — a significant concession to the administration.
-
On Friday we reasserted two important articles to protect the integrity of our teaching and scholarship: Generative Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property. We cannot think of a single reason why the administration should not easily agree to preserve the integrity of an NYU education by agreeing to both of common sense articles, and yet they have refused to engage with them at all.
-
Despite our filing charges with the arbitrator over the administration’s unfair labor practices, the administration continues to refuse to bargain over Housing Benefits or medical benefits when we retire. If they continue to break the law by refusing to negotiate over these topics, we will be forced to strike.
What comes next
We will continue to bargain. We’re meeting with the administration on Friday, March 13 and throughout spring break. We know that we can’t win the strong contract we need and deserve or compel the administration to bargain in good faith through conversation at the bargaining table alone. We’ll win by being ready to strike at the end of spring break. Here are some ways to get strike ready:
-
Encourage your students and colleagues outside our bargaining unit to email the board of trustees with this tool.
-
Respond to this email to join a strike committee!
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)