RESOLUTION OF THE ENGLISH GRADUATE ORGANIZATION OF SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY IN SUPPORT OF GSOC/UAW 2110, the union of graduate student employees at New York University.


WHEREAS, the English Graduate Organization of Syracuse University is organized to provide
an inclusive, public and democratic space in which to advocate for the interests of all Syracuse English graduate students, AND

WHEREAS, it is in the interest of the English Graduate Organization of Syracuse University to
protect graduate student rights, to advocate for improved material conditions for graduate
students, to seek to uphold and protect academic freedom, to advocate for fair labor standards that do not impede rigorous graduate education, AND

WHEREAS, the above named principles, conditions, an practices lead to strong graduate
education, collegial academic departments with high morale, and improved
undergraduate education by graduate student instructors, AND

WHEREAS, GSOC/UAW 2110 has gone on strike to defend these same principles and values
and in so doing seeks to protect graduate student employee interests through a legally binding collective bargaining agreement New York University, an institution that depends on graduate student labor, AND

WHEREAS, the efforts of the administration of New York University to defeat the graduate
student union and retaliate against those who have initiated and sustained the current strike defies all protocols of civility and fairness and heralds a bellicose approach to the union and its demands for fair wages, decent health care, and provisional job security, AND

WHEREAS, the requests made by the administration of New York University upon its faculty
represent an unprecedented and dangerous infringement on departmental autonomy, AND

WHEREAS, the administration of New York University utilized information technology
such as Blackboard to engage in electronic surveillance reportedly in order to gain information about teaching staff and the status of their courses during the strike, and that the seizure of access to the communication between teaching staff and their registered students is in deepest violation of academic freedom, AND

WHEREAS, President Sexton of New York University on 28 November 2005 threatened to
rescind the Spring 2006 stipend support of striking graduate students who do not return to
the duties of their assistantships by 5 December 2005, also that such students would return to work under the proviso that striking again would disqualify them from two semesters of teaching and stipend support. AND

WHEREAS, such draconian policies and threats violate the principles of the university, violating the academic
freedom of students who have chosen to strike according to good conscience

IT IS RESOLVED that the English Graduate Organization of Syracuse University approves the actions of, and expresses solidarity with, the graduate student employees of New York University now on strike and refusing to teach, grade, advise, or perform any other duties associated with their assistantships.

*In solidarity with other groups, parts of the above were copied from written statements in support of the NYU TA's posted on www.facultydemocracy.org

PASSED 10 December 2005

Labor News At Syracuse University

A development on campus that hasn't been covered widely. . .

(from the SU News clearinghouse)

Adjunct faculty union vote begins

On Oct. 31, a petition was filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by Adjuncts United, a labor union affiliated with the New York State United Teachers Union (AU/NYSUT), seeking to represent part-time and part-time adjunct faculty members employed by Syracuse University.
In its communications with the relevant faculty members, the University has stated that it would prefer to work directly with part-time and adjunct faculty to achieve mutually agreed upon goals, without an outside organization and that it respects the right of employees to choose whether or not they are represented by a union.

Details of this ongoing process are available at: http://provost.syr.edu/unionization/unioninfo.htm.

On Dec. 5, the NLRB is sending all eligible voters a ballot, by which they may cast their vote in a secret-ballot election to indicate whether they wish to be represented by a union for purposes of collective bargaining. This election will be conducted by mail. Eligible voters are defined as: all part-time, non-tenure-track faculty members employed by the University on the University’s Syracuse, N.Y., payroll and working in Syracuse, including part-time adjunct non-tenure-track faculty members; and including such faculty members employed by University College, all professional schools and on-line instruction programs. Excluded are all full-time faculty members, tenured and tenure-track faculty members, visiting professors, research faculty members, graduate assistants, teaching assistants, research assistants and faculty members who work in dual capacity for the University, which includes supervisory, confidential and/or managerial status, confidential employees, temporary employees, managers, guards and supervisors as defined by the National Labor Relations Act, and all other employees.

The majority of the votes cast in that election will determine whether the entire eligible group is represented or not. That is, employees who vote not to be represented and employees who abstain will, regardless of their vote, be represented by the union if a majority of the votes cast favor unionization. SU urges every employee who is within the petitioned unit to vote his or her personal preference.

Ballots must be returned on or before the close of business on Dec. 19 to count in the election process. Ballots will be counted on Dec. 20 and the results will be shared immediately. Regardless of the outcome of the election, SU will continue to work toward addressing the needs of its faculty and staff, in line with the priorities and economic realities of the University.

Notice the rhetorical threat of the "ominous union monster" in there? This is a clear (and common) anti-union tactic used to frighten unsure workers by encouraging them to link unions with totalitarianism in the that hope that they will instead opt for the university's proposed "good faith" model in which workers and the administration work toward mutually agreed upon goals.

The Graduate Employee Strike At NYU



Since November, graduate student employees of NYU (TA's, GA's, RA's etc) have been on strike. NYU's GSOC was the first graduate student union to win recognition at a private univeristy. The Bush National Labor Relations Board, however, released NYU from its obligation to recognize the union. When their contract ended this year, NYU refused to recognize the union, and seeks to 'take care' of its graduate students on good faith. In the meantime, however, graduate students claim that since the end of the contract, they have seen their health care costs rise dramatically. When the strike commenced, NYU apparently engaged in ethically dubious activities to coerce graduate students back into work. It has been reported that the administration entered Blackboard course pages in an effort to discover if the GA/TA in question had suspended courses. This is an incomplete account of the events, more information can be found at the GSOC webpage here.

Recently, the president of the university issued a statement saying that graduate students who do not report back to work by December 5 will lose their stipends for the Spring semester, and further, that students who strike again will lose their assistantships. That statement is available here. These actions are being called the most draconian response to the graduate student labor movement. Judith Butler, Joan Scott, Frederic jameson, Slovoj Zizek and others have issued a statement in response and are calling for signatures on an online petition site. Their letter is also reproduced below.

To: President John Sexton, NYU
December 2, 2005
John Sexton
President, New York University

We, the undersigned faculty from several universities in the United States and abroad, write to express our objections to the New York University administration's efforts to defeat the graduate student union and retaliate against those who have initiated and sustained the current strike. The union in question was clearly instated on the basis of a fair election which then obligated New York University to negotiate with the appointed representatives in a fair and open manner. Although the NLRB in 2005 released the university from its obligations to recognize the union, it did not authorize retaliatory action on the part of the university.The recent actions of your office, now widely publicized, defy all protocols of civility and fairness and herald a bellicose approach to the union and its demands for fair wages, decent health care, and provisional job security.

As we all know, there may be differences of opinion on how best to formulate policies that would address these various issues, but undermining the union itself is nothing more than Reagan-esque union-busting and so conveys and enacts hostility to student labor that can only heighten conflict and circulate a ruinous image for New York University as an unfair and indecent place of employment. The infiltration of student and faculty email constitutes an unauthorized invasion of privacy.And the most recent threat to rescind funding for students engaged in the strike constitutes an abhorrent form of coercion.

We urge you to enter into negotiations with the union and to find civil, legal, and productive ways of resolving whatever issues of employment exist between these two parties.

Sincerely,

Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Fredric Jameson, William A. Lane Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Studies, Duke University
Joan W. Scott, Harold F. Linder Professer of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study
Talal Asad, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, City University of New York
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University
Paul Gilroy, Anthony Giddens Professors of Social Theory, London School of Economics
Donna Haraway, Professor of History of Consciousness, University of California at Santa Cruz
Slavoj Zizek, Co-Director International Center for Humanities Birkbeck College, University of London
Etienne Balibar, Professeur emeritus, Université de Paris X Nanterre, Distinguished Professor of Humanities, University of California, Irvine

EGO members may find it interesting to compare NYU's actions against the striking graduate students with former Chancellor Buzz Shaw's reaction to SU faculty that refused to cross the picket line in the 1997 service workers strike at SU. You can read about that by following the link at left for "1997 service worker strike."


By, the way, I know the guy who kinda looks like Sideshow Bob in this picture. He's a musicology PhD student. Brilliant kid.