Borf Endorses Grad-Student Worker Union!
Posted November 25th, 2005 by Canek
Well, maybe not exactly. But he (borf) should!
Graduate student workers at NYU have been on strike for two weeks now. In 2002, NYU Graduate Assistants (TA’s and RA’s) were first in the nation to secure their right to unionize at a private university. Since then, Bush appointees to the National Labor Relations Board have reversed their decision to acknowledge grad-student workers’ right to unionize. NYU is no longer obligated to recognize their union. Since the grad-student worker contract expired in August, NYU administrators have capitalized on this opportunity by spending thousands upon thousands of dollars to crush the three year old union.
Without a grad-student worker union, NYU’s administration will have a blank check to implement unilateral decisions that affect TA and RA working conditions and undergraduate learning conditions whenever they want. Class sizes can increase, wages can decrease and health care can be cut without the university being held accountable to any kind of democratic process. This will solidify an already wide spread corporate model in universities around the country. For more information, check out this indepth analysis offered by proffessor Alan Sokal.
Graduate and undergraduate students are pissed and have taken their frustrations to the street. The poster above was designed by undergraduate photo students. It appropriates and subverts one of NYU’s many advertising designs. The poster encourages students to call NYU President Sexton to demand he negotiate with the union now.
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