Strike Authorization Vote FAQ

A strike authorization vote is a vote that authorizes our bargaining committee to call a strike if circumstances justify. A minimum two-thirds majority of those voting is required by the UAW constitution to authorize the bargaining committee to call a strike. Strike authorization votes are a standard process within the labor movement to ensure that strikes are only called with strong participation and approval from the bargaining unit.

If two thirds of those voting authorize a strike, our elected bargaining committee may set a strike deadline and then, if necessary, call a strike.

Our union is a democratic organization governed by its members. A strike authorization vote is used to authorize the bargaining committee to call a strike in the circumstance that the NYU administration refuses to bargain fairly. Our vote will be conducted via digital ballot distributed to all contract faculty who have signed an authorization card. No one will be able to see how you vote. The ballot will be open from Monday, February 9 to Friday, February 20. 

A strike authorization vote is most effective with highest possible participation from all contract faculty voting ‘yes’. In 2022, adjunct faculty voted by 95% to authorize a strike, with 75% of all union members voting. With the power of that strike threat adjunct faculty won a groundbreaking contract before the strike deadline set by their bargaining committee. In 2021, graduate teaching assistants voted by 96% to authorize a strike, with 80% of all union members voting. Graduate workers went on strike during spring finals to reach a fair contract.

A strike is the most powerful tool we have to win a strong contract. A strike is a coordinated stoppage of work aimed at applying pressure to an employer to meet employee demands. In our case, contract faculty would stop our paid work to send a message to the administration that they need to make more progress in bargaining. Our bargaining committee may only call a strike after a democratic vote authorizes them to do so.

A strike authorization vote authorizes the elected Bargaining Committee to call a strike if they deem it necessary, but it does not necessarily mean we will strike right away. Typically, we would give some time for the administration to agree to our demands (in this case, to a fair contract), and set a strike deadline, before actually striking. We want the administration to have an opportunity to respond.

When and where the strike would happen is something contract faculty will decide once we have voted to authorize a strike. A work stoppage must be disruptive to work – that’s why it’s the strongest tool we have to secure a fair contract. We are preparing now so that if it is necessary, we are ready. 

We hope that the NYU administration will make greater progress toward a fair agreement, and preparing for — and authorizing — a strike is the best way we can make that happen.

A strike is a complete work stoppage. During a strike, contract faculty would not perform our work duties and instead would participate in picket lines to increase the visibility of the strike. We will make the decision about the duration, or timing for ending a potential strike, based on the status of negotiations.

Contract faculty make up just over half of all full-time faculty at NYU. When contract faculty withhold our labor, the NYU administration will be forced to make much greater efforts to reach a fair agreement or cease to function as a top tier university. The more of us who participate, the more collective power we will have.

When we demonstrate publicly that we are willing to stop working through voting overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, it will also increase pressure on the NYU administration to respond to our demands and make more movement in negotiations.

Yes. Strikes are legal in the United States, and the NYU administration recognized our legal right to strike when it signed the election agreement in January 2024. 

Thousands of fellow academic workers at NYU and at other institutions citywide like the New School, the Mt. Sinai Medical School, and Columbia University, have successfully organized strike authorization votes and gone on strike during contract campaigns. Similarly, faculty at Rutgers organized a strike authorization vote and then a high participation strike, to win improvements in their most recent contract in 2023. 

As with all other union action, our solidarity and willingness to be public is our best protection: there is strength in numbers.

Yes. International faculty have the same rights under labor law to participate in union activities, including striking, as do citizens . 

Thousands of UAW international academic workers at the University of California, University of Washington, and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine recently took strike votes and ultimately went on strike to win strong contracts. Similarly, hundreds of international workers at Weill Cornell Medicine voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike earlier this year as part of their effort to win a first contract.

Many of our students already understand that our working conditions are their  learning conditions, and that the contract provisions we win through a potential strike will make NYU a better place to teach and to learn. After all, our academic freedom to teach and research is their freedom to learn. Solving our crisis in overwork will mean better prepared, less burned-out faculty for them. We all must strive to educate students in advance of the strike so that they understand what’s at stake.  We should also help our students understand what we’ve done before taking a strike vote to try to win a strong first contract that protects us and them.

While participating in a strike will require all of us to make sacrifices, this action also gives faculty the collective power to ensure that the NYU administration reaches a fair agreement with us. A contract that provides vital improvements to our pay, benefits, and workplace rights would also make NYU more equitable, inclusive, and competitive with other major universities, and this will in turn improve our ability to teach at NYU.

In February 2024, contract faculty voted by an overwhelming 89% in favor of unionizing; with two-thirds of all faculty participating in the vote.

Nearly two years later we are still fighting to reach a first contract that protects the integrity of NYU’s educational, artistic, and scholarly missions and provides fair and equitable support for contract faculty at NYU. Throughout negotiations we have made many efforts to demonstrate the urgency of reaching a fair agreement in a timely manner, including:

• In Fall 2024, a majority of contract faculty both completed bargaining surveys to shape our initial priorities and voted to ratify our initial bargaining goals by a 99% vote. 
• In Spring 2025, a majority of contract faculty signed an open letter urging the NYU administration to reach a strong first contract that includes stronger protections for academic freedom.
• Since November 2024, hundreds of us — more than half the entire contract faculty — have attended bargaining sessions as observers, and we have shared our stories through social media and testified in bargaining about our experiences. 
• We held town halls and multiple rallies with other members of the NYU community and NYC academic workers. 
• We have shown support and flyered at community and student events to engage with the NYU community.
• We have received support from other academic unions across the country, the region, and the city, and over 250 tenure-track faculty signed an open letter supporting our demands.
• We met with a number of elected representatives in New York City to discuss our contract priorities and were supported at rallies by State Senators Jessica Ramos and Brian Kavanaugh; Assembly Members Jo Ann Simon, Deborah Glick, and Claire Valdez; then-Comptroller Brad Lander, and now-Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Despite these and other efforts, the NYU administration is making virtually no progress towards addressing our core demands. Instead, they have delayed bargaining by withholding information about the rates at which Contract Faculty Members are paid for supplemental duties such as summer teaching (for faculty on nine-month contracts), administrative work, and other research and academic work. Furthermore, they have made changes to terms and conditions of our employment, such as research funding and workload, without bargaining. Finally, the administration has sought to walk back on who will be covered by our union contract, seeking to remove contract faculty whom we previously agreed were covered as part of our historic neutrality and election agreement.

Recently, the administration’s spokesperson has claimed that our union is prioritizing escalation over compromise, and that we should enter a mediation process before taking a strike authorization vote. This suggestion is misleading. We have not categorically rejected mediation — rather, we have stated to the administration that we do not believe it would be useful at this stage.

That’s because mediation tends to work best when the two sides are relatively close and need help coming up with solutions to address intractable disputes over core issues. While our elected bargaining committee has brought major compromise proposals to recent sessions, the administration has not, thus we remain far apart on core issues. The administration continues to insist on inadequate pay and benefit proposals, poor job security, a lack of safeguards against overwork, eviscerating shared governance, and refusing strong academic freedom protections. If the administration is not prepared to make major movement on core demands, mediation will simply mean we rehash existing positions in a different room. A mediator cannot impose terms or require the administration to improve its offers; only strong collective action can do that.

The NYU administration has the right to not pay us while we are on strike and not working. In the event the administration exercises its right not to pay strikers, contract faculty who complete strike duties will be eligible for $500 per week of strike pay from the UAW strike fund. We also have the option to establish a hardship fund and fundraise to provide further assistance to workers who experience emergency financial hardship due to lost pay.

If the NYU administration decides to withhold health benefits during a strike, contract faculty and dependents would have our medical and prescription benefits paid through the UAW Strike and Defense Fund on the same terms as your current NYU-sponsored health insurance plan.

Retaliation for organizing and striking is illegal. There are many examples of other NYU employees, including adjunct faculty and graduate workers, taking strike votes and sometimes ultimately going on strike to win their contracts. For them, as with all other union actions, their solidarity and willingness to be public was their best protection, and the same is true for us.

Yes, going on strike would involve stopping all work that we are paid to do as contract faculty, including service work, grant-funded research, and work performed as part of administrative positions covered by our bargaining unit. 

While participating in a strike will require all of us to make sacrifices, this action also gives faculty the collective power to ensure that NYU reaches a fair agreement with us. A contract that provides vital improvements to our pay, benefits, and workplace rights would also make NYU more equitable, inclusive, and competitive with other major institutions, and this will in turn improve our teaching and research at NYU. 

More specifically, in terms of grant-funded research, tens of thousands of researchers who are funded through grants have similarly prepared for and gone on strike to win improvements to their working conditions at institutions such as Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine, University of California, and more.

Most of the extra work we do is covered by the union contract we’re fighting for, and so, yes, in case of a strike we would stop that work. The only exceptions are so-called Special Administrative Positions defined in paragraph A(3) of our election and neutrality agreement:

• vice/associate/assistant chairs
• directors of institutes (other than Marron Institute) and cultural houses
• directors of degree-granting academic programs
• directors of studios in the Tisch School of the Arts
• directors of undergraduate studies and graduate studies except for in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences — in FAS and Courant, DUS and DGS duties are included in our contract and thus would be struck
• academic directors in the School of Professional Studies and the Center for Urban Science and Progress — in all other schools and programs, academic director duties are included in our contract and would thus be struck
• coordinator of the Westchester and Rockland Campuses at the Silver School of Social Work 
• administrative titles in the Division of Libraries

Yes, going on strike would involve stopping all work that we are paid to do, including grant-funded research. Thousands of researchers in NYC and nationally who are funded through grants have similarly prepared for and gone on strike to win improvements to their working conditions. 

While participating in a strike will require all of us to make sacrifices, this action also gives faculty the collective power to ensure that NYU reaches a fair agreement with us. A contract that provides vital improvements to our pay, benefits, and workplace rights would also make NYU more equitable, inclusive, and competitive with other major institutions, and this will in turn improve our teaching and research at NYU.

Strikes are more effective when there is large participation, but it is an individual’s choice to participate. 

The answer to this question depends on the kind of service or administrative position you hold. Our Neutrality and Election Agreement defines three categories of service/administrative positions held by contract faculty. 

First: Contract faculty holding A(2) positions — so called because they are listed in paragraph A(2) — are categorically excluded from the bargaining unit. 

• All ranks of provosts, chancellors, or deans; 
• full chairs and heads of academic departments, divisions, or programs; 
• executive directors; 
• directors of global academic centers; the director of the Marron Institute; and 
• directors of degree-granting academic programs in FAS and GPH who do not report to a chair and whose programs employ full-time continuing contract faculty, including the directors of XE, International Relations, Museum Studies, Hellenic Studies, and Public Health Nutrition. 

If you hold one of the administrative positions listed above, you are excluded from the bargaining unit for the duration of your administrative appointment. 

Second: Contract faculty holding A(3) positions — so called because they are listed in paragraph A(3) — are NOT categorically excluded from the bargaining unit. 

• Vice, associate, and assistant chairs; 
• directors of institutes (other than the Marron Institute); 
• directors of cultural houses; 
• directors of degree-granting academic programs (other than those listed in A(2) above); 
• directors of undergraduate studies and graduate studies outside of FAS and Courant; 
• academic directors in CUSP and SPS; 
• faculty with administrative titles in the Libraries; 
• the coordinator of the Westchester and Rockland Campuses in Silver; and 
• directors of studios in the Tisch School of the Arts. 

If you hold one of the listed Specified Administrative Positions and the work associated with the role constitutes half or more than half of your job (measured in course release and/or compensation), then you are excluded from the bargaining unit for the duration of the administrative appointment.

If you hold one of the listed Specified Administrative Positions and the work associated with the role constitutes less than half of your job (measured in course release and/or compensation), then you are included in the bargaining unit. However, the terms and conditions of your Specified Administrative Position are at the discretion of the administration and are not covered by our union contract.

Finally: Contract faculty holding all other service/administrative positions NOT listed in A(2) and A(3) above are included in the bargaining unit. 

If your service/administrative position doesn’t appear in the A(2) or A(3) lists above — e.g. you’re a lab/clinic/program director, coordinator, area head, etc. — you are fully in the union. The administration retains some discretion over the terms and conditions of your service/administrative position, but you are covered by our union contract. 

In January, the bargaining committee and the administration tentatively agreed to an article that provides some protections for contract faculty holding these service/administrative positions. Like all our tentative agreements, this will not go into effect until the entire contract is ratified.

You won’t be covered by our union contract for the duration of your administrative appointment. 

Our bargaining committee has proposed a compensation article that would ensure that when you return to the bargaining unit, your salary will include whatever raises you would have gotten had you remained in the bargaining unit. We have not yet reached tentative agreement on this article, and whatever terms we agree to will not go into effect until after the entire contract is ratified.

Last March, our bargaining committee proposed an article that would guarantee that if you temporarily cycle out of the bargaining unit to hold an excluded administrative position, you retain rights and protections relating to compensation, benefits, and seniority upon return. Thus far, the administration has rejected this proposal out of hand.

However, several other articles currently being negotiated include eligibility requirements tied to “years of service” and/or “consecutive years of employment,” and/or “seniority” (e.g. for the retirement plan, for certain kinds of leave). Here, the administration has been amenable to language that makes clear that they “will count any period of employment during which a Contract Faculty Member was previously excluded from the bargaining unit under Article I(A)(2)-(3) of the Agreement.” We have not yet reached tentative agreement on these articles, and whatever terms we agree to will not go into effect until after the entire contract is ratified.

You can review a full chronological record of articles proposed in bargaining here.

Most of the service/administrative work we do is covered by the union contract we’re fighting for, so, yes: in case of a strike you would stop all work that you are paid to do as contract faculty, including service work, grant-funded research, and any other work associated with service/administrative positions included in our bargaining unit. 

Tens of thousands of grant-funded researchers have prepared for and gone on strike to win improvements to their working conditions at institutions such as Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine, University of California, and more. While participating in a strike will require all of us to make sacrifices, this action also gives us the collective power to ensure that the administration settles a fair contract.

Get in touch with an organizer in your school (or email cfu.uaw@gmail.com) to be connected with members of our organizing and bargaining committees. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, but we can help you understand your situation and ensure that you’re prepared.