To NYU's Undergraduates

A Reply to John Sexton's Letter

As you probably know, President John Sexton recently contacted your parents to explain the university’s position on the rights of graduate student workers and to assure them that “the normal rhythms of campus life” will be maintained in case of a strike by GSOC, the union of graduate student employees.

The letter repeated some of the points made by the University leadership in the letter they sent to you directly on October 20. It refused to call to GSOC by name, referring instead to the “United Auto Workers”— manipulative language clearly intended to cast doubt on the legitimacy and autonomy of graduate employee unions. It is worth noting that clerical and technical workers at NYU are organized under the American Federation of Teachers but it is unlikely that the administration would call such workers “Teachers.” Clearly, the administration is trying to discredit graduate student work by associating it with the labor of industrial workers, a gesture offensive to an important history of labor in America. This language plays on stereotypes of union members and creates the impression of off-campus interference with university activity. But in today’s economy, many different kinds of workers belong to unions, including professors, sports figures, actors (in the Screen Actor’s Guild), Graduate Assistants in California (and elsewhere) and so on. The UAW, in addition to its solid base of industrial workers, represents journalists, clerical workers and museum staff in New York City. There is nothing unusual about GSOC’s affilation with the UAW.

Likewise, although it acknowledges the $19,000 stipend, the letter continues to convey the impression that graduate students receive fifty thousand dollars a year from the university. And it implies that the Union has “interfered with “academic decision making,” depicting the Administration as a victim of blue collar meddlers who “did not keep their word.”

These and other points in the administration’s communications with you and with your parents manipulate the facts, and they are addressed in detail in an open letter to the NYU community written by Faculty Democracy, an organization of over 230 NYU professors who believe that the Administration should honor its contract with the graduate students. You can find the letter, which was published in the Washington Square News, online at http://www.nyunews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/31/43657d6107d80.

We are taking this time to write to you again because there are some additional aspects of Sexton’s letter to your parents that you should know about. First, and hardly surprisingly, the letter plays the money card, referring to “the efforts and sacrifices many of you make to send your sons and daughters here.” There is no question that your parents—and you—have worked hard to get you here. But we think it is important for you to know that ultimately, the disruptions in your education that might occur in the next few weeks are not the fault of the graduate student union. GSOC repeatedly indicated its willingness to meet and negotiate with the Administration until the very last minute. The rights of the graduate students to organize, and to strike if necessary, are an ethical matter not a financial one. Indeed, if we are going to talk money, it should be noted that the Administration employed high-priced lawyers to fight the unionization effort. Its decision not to bargain with a legally recognized union, overruling the objections of faculty, has no doubt generated astronomical legal costs. We believe, and we hope you do too, that the university’s financial priorities should not include the disenfranchisement and intimidation of its teachers.

Secondly, the language of this letter is highly inflammatory when it comes to describing what happened in the final days before the University announced that it would not negotiate. According to Sexton, “we were unwilling to accept the union's demand that graduate students be stripped of their scholarships if they chose not to pay union dues; and we were unwilling to allow educational decisions to be taken from the hands of our faculty and placed in the control of outside arbitrators.” The first of these points is a melodramatic way of saying that the union would be (as it had been) an "agency shop” -- that is, that the payment of dues would be mandatory for all graduate student employees covered by the 2000 NLRB ruling, whether or not they choose to join the union. This is something quite typical for many unions (including the adjunct union at NYU). The second point, the legitimacy of outside arbitrators, hardly needs answering. Essentially, the union is asking that grievances be resolved by a neutral third party. NYU’s position is that all grievances should be “fully and finally decided" by the administration – that is, by the Provost. But the point of a contract, surely, is to ensure that disputes are handled fairly and impartially, without the distortions of vested interests. This is not an “academic” issue, it is a matter of fair employment, pure and simple.

We are addressing this letter to you because, unlike the administration, NYU professors do not have a direct means of communication with parents. But we hope that you will consider sharing and discussing this letter, along with the one published in the WSN, with your parents and guardians. If there is a strike this semester it is quite likely that your experience of this institution will change. But with free and open discussion among graduate students, faculty, undergraduates, and administrators, there is a chance that it may be a change for the better.