Extraordinary

So the TAs get their tuition paid for them, plus free health coverage, and they are not required to earn them? Extraordinary. Even more extraordinary is that they are complaining about the largesse.

Wow. Where do I sign up?

Bad English, at 8:15 am EST on January 25, 2006

About time

Now THAT’s providing an education, kids.

Bravo NYU—it’s about time.

David, at 8:45 am EST on January 25, 2006

Strike fund

I’ve just made my second monthly donation to the GSOC hardship fund (http://www.2110uaw.org/gsoc/donate.htm), and I’m supporting the strike through fundraising efforts.

In response to the argument that one must work for one’s pay, I agree with it — just as long as one is recognized to be a worker. Workers are entitled to form unions when there exists enough support, and employers have the duty to recognize and bargain with unions. When NYU refuses to recognize and bargain with the union, it forfeits the argument that the GSOC stipends are wages and tied to job performance.

If for no other reason, the strikers deserve support because they are standing up for workers and unions everywhere. NYU’s actions are part of an ongoing attack on workers and unions.

Uri, University of Massachusetts, at 11:20 am EST on January 25, 2006

Uri

I’ve run enough teaching practica and supervised plenty of TAs, and I can therefore tell you that these students are learning how to be workers in our field; they are not workers already. The problems that crop up with TAs are myriad and constant, as can be the case with any student population. If the students were actually workers, they would be removed from the classroom at the first sign of incompetence and not assigned any future work. This is what happens to weak part-time instructors. We are giving student instructors the chance to learn how to work in this field, and some practical experience that they can use to help secure employment once they graduate. That’s a very good deal.

Wait until they hit the market: Then they’ll understand. Right now, they really have no idea about market conditions and what they are dealing with.

Bad English, at 11:45 am EST on January 25, 2006

These are not workers. They are students. If their teaching responsibilities were their job and not a privilege extended by way of financial aid, they would be “fired” from their enrollment, too.

This is not an “attack on workers and unions” but a defense against predatory attack by the UAW. Really, if there was any legitamacy to the issue don’t you think there would be a more appropriate collective bargaining organization at the table than the United AUTO workers?

NYU was too weak and enabling for a long time leading up to this, it’s about time they showed some backbone and stood up for what is right.

The graduate students involved can keep studying and get jobs waiting tables...though I bet they’ll miss find their forfeited positions were cushier (and more lucrative) by far.

David, at 11:55 am EST on January 25, 2006

Making Up For Lost Time

Maybe NYU is just making up for all the days that the GSOC members “stuck” in the past (great verb, by the way).

I’m sure if you added all those days together, and times them by three (the way transit workers get penalized), you’d have a whole semester’s worth of penalties by now.

Or think of it like hockey: you just have to stay in the penalty box for a long time now because you raised your sticks.

April, at 12:21 pm EST on January 25, 2006

Students

They are not employees.

And they are not “locked out.” They didn’t show up for class; they were deemed unreliable. They were warned beforehand in very clear terms. Why should they EVER be entrusted with a class again?

David, at 2:45 pm EST on January 25, 2006

Wages v. Financial Aid

What remuneration students receive for apprentice teaching is financial aid, not a salary. Schools need to clearly separate the two for the students’ understanding: They would *not* be hired for teaching anything if they were not enrolled students, and whatever money they are receiving is specifically to finance their education. In short, schools need to teach their students the difference between an apprentice studying how to function in a given profession (and receiving financial aid to do so) and a professional in that field who receives a salary for his/her labors.

If schools make this difference perfectly clear, and clearly detach the receipt of financial aid from the question of apprentice classroom instruction, that obliterates any basis on which to falsely argue that students are workers (i.e., there is no quid pro quo making them employees under the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act). Since this seems to be a source of such serious confusion for the students, this explanation is necessary to help them understand damage that they may be doing to their own futures by misunderstanding their own roles as professional apprentices in grad school.

Bad English, at 5:20 pm EST on January 25, 2006

to angry david...

it seems odd that anyone would be upset with striking graduate assistants for receiving pay while on strike. if you are upset about the ‘injustice’ of receiving pay while on strike, why don’t you direct your frustrations toward the people who made that decision to begin with, the nyu administration.

in case you are confused as to the reason why the administration chose to pay striking GA’s, they did so in order to argue that they are not in fact employees. If they are not workers, then they are not not working. its a silly logic. but, it is the political strategy being used by the administration to discredit and abolish the existing GA union.

the administration has now decided to make good with its threats of docked pay and blacklisting in a narrowly strategic way. by punishing only a few strikers, the administration hopes to intimidate other striking GA’s while at the same time preserving an illusion of consistancy with their false claim that GA’s are not employees.

luckily, striking GA’s are and have been ready, for some time now, to deal with blacklisting and docked pay. the UAW, faculty, undergraudate students, other local unions and supporters from around the world have contributed to the GSOC strike fund.

as an undergraduate with a vested interest in the preservation of the graduate assistant union, i am very happy that the campaign is still going and still going strong!

Canek, Undergraduate Student at NYU, at 6:15 pm EST on January 25, 2006

Search Committee Member

This is, of course, the rub: these “workers” have no hope of a career at NYU— they’re students, not “workers.” So they’re risking their careers to improve working conditions that are relevant to them for only a few years. When UAW members go on strike, they’re trying to safeguard their long-term conditions.

Until or unless one can get all of American academia to join a union, this is not good strategy. So many of us who have positions already don’t see ourselves as “workers,” but as “professionals"— and we judge these striking “workers” not as workers but as interns in our profession. From OUR perspective— and I’m not speaking for everyone, just lots of us— these are unprofessional apprentices, and when we hire our colleagues we want professionals like ourselves. So we will hire those who have behaved professionally, which includes timely finishing of exemplary dissertations and thoroughly masterful and professional behavior as apprentice teachers. There is (luckily for these student/ apprentices) no blacklist, but there is also no solidarity and many of us will not smile at their applications if word gets out of their behavior.

(Of course, in some more radical departments a leadership role in the union may be a positively distinguishing characteristic. But I wouldn’t count on it— even politically radical departments want colleagues on whom they can count).

Another point: obviously TA’s treatment varies. But at my private southern university, I received about $12k in stipend (throughout the 1990s)... plus a $35k tuition waiver and a health insurance package that would have run $1500-2k per year had I purchased it. And then there was a wonderful gym, free and cheap cultural events, a major research library, and free medical and psychological care on campus that didn’t even impact my health insurance.

Yes, it’s tough to live on $12k; but plenty of people would envy this $50k + package, and people have been known to borrow money to pay the tuition that I had waived. Indeed, I would love to have the various amenities now that I had then! and no matter what sort of career I pursued, I had that massively expensive education for which I never had to pay a dime. I have never been anything but grateful for this professional opportunity.

Fred Duke, at 4:40 am EST on January 26, 2006

Would H.M.S. Be Okay?

Ms. LeClair—

I don’t know how to address you. Would it be okay to call you “Your Majesty,” or do you prefer “Your Royal Highness?” Let me know which of these terms best suits your needs. Below, I would simply like to explore some of your central points:

“I would argue that many TA’s (and adjuncts, and associate professors) are more dedicated to their teaching than the full-time tenured professors whom the students are really paying to teach.”

You’ve obviously shown excessive dedication by fulfilling the tasks you agreed to perform. You are far superior to those full-time faculty members who attend the lectures they agree to teach. Shame on them for their duplicitous diligence! Shame on us for respecting those who do the work they say they will.

“Also, is anyone concerned about the reproduction of class divisions in academia? Who can afford to go to graduate school?”

It’s surprising, but student loans are available to lower-income and upper-income students alike. It’s incredible, but students from working-class families are able to afford college because their working-class parents WORK and save money for that purpose. Sometimes, even those aspiring students themselves hold down jobs and save money for that purpose.

You will be shocked to learn that many current professors had to do things the hard way and borrow money, work part-time jobs, and live in near poverty in order to advance their goals. Join the club.

I suspect some things will never change. It’s a struggle to get to where you would like to be. If you’re not prepared for the effort, then perhaps you should reconsider your career plans.

Cheers, H.M.S!

Name Withheld, at 9:50 am EST on January 26, 2006

Just a few thing before I quit the business of trying to defend myself to people not interested in hearing both sides of the story (but I welcome engaging dialogue — what a great way for us all to learn!)

Lest you all think I’m grossly pretentious (and I do understand this reading of one of my quotations) I have no problem being called Amy, that’s what all my students call me and, for that matter, anyone with whom I have a mutually respectful relationship. This does not, however, include the administration. They’re not my buddies, and I find the tone with which they address us pedantic. At least I have no problem putting my name out there.

I am not in graduate school, or teaching, for the money. I want the protection of a union to guarantee health benefits, to limit class sizes so I can effectively teach students in recitations, to provide healthy working conditions, to protect academia from the encroachment of the corporate model. If I was in it for the money, I’d be in the business school.

Showing up for a class does not a dedicated teacher make. My professors, many of whom are excellent teachers and after whom I model my pedagogy, consider me a colleague — I give do research and write papers alongside them. Standing up for what you believe is right and just in the face of blind authority does not make you inmature or irresponisble. It is irresponsible to teach your students “critical thinking” in an environment that actively stiffles free discourse without working to make change.

I have consistently been amazed by the support from undergraduate students. What I tell them, however, is whether they agree or disagree with the strike they should engage in dialogue with friends, parents, teachers. This is, after all, a lesson in labor relations and political activism.

Amy, at 11:45 am EST on January 26, 2006

Amy,

The bulk of my point in my previous post is to tell you how senior folks in the profession feel. We don’t want to hire people who don’t meet OUR idea of professionalism, which may well differ from YOUR idea. WE (who chair the search committees) don’t see you as proles; we see you as apprentices who do a more professional or less professional job and judge you, as candidates, accordingly.

My wider point about your strategy: IF you can convince the bulk of us to join your union efforts, then it makes sense. But you won’t succeed in this, because we have other fish to fry and a different perspective. So you remain stuck with two quite distinctive time horizons: your short stint as a TA and your long (potential) stint as a fully-fledged member of the profession. In my view, you make a mistake to concentrate on the short term over the long term; in my view there is no practical way to unite the short term with the long term during YOUR short term. I may be wrong, but you’re taking a huge gamble that I am.

Fred

Fred Duke, at 4:35 am EST on January 27, 2006

To Search Committee Member:

Your frustration is understandable. After all, it must be tough to recruit new colleagues from “southern” North Korea...at least that’s where I assume you’re writing from if you insist upon the legitamacy of judging job applicants based on their political beliefs rather than their qualifications. I hope that you have a happy retirement, sooner rather than later, so that professional workers committed to a more equitable academy can fill your shoes.

truth to power, at 5:35 am EST on January 28, 2006

Mas Respeto

I want to express my deep respect and admiration for Amy LeClaire and all the strikers who will be the first to potentially endure the loss of their teaching stipends this semester at NYU. Having met many of them personally, I know that they have made their decision with intelligence, courage, and humility, attributes which will serve them well in their future academic careers. Let’s face it, academia is inescapably laced with institutional politics that many intellectuals are unable to handle precisely because they failed to develop something other than their overly-critical, hyper-citational faculties.

I want to make clear that the sacrifice these strikers are making now, regardless of what is said in this impotent flame war, is very much worth it. It emboldens those of us who will support them and stand by them in the face of the sarcastic sneers of online bystanders, the cold shoulders of colleagues, and the unjustified punishments of our university. At the close of the day, the peace of mind that comes from acting one’s conscious always lightens the burden of these difficult decisions.

Orlando Lara, NYU, at 5:35 am EST on January 28, 2006

Bad English,

Do you seriously mean to say that you judge candidates based on their personal attitude to unionization? Is your respect of free speech, free thought, and the freedom to associate that limited? If so, you are a shoddy example of an academic ‘professional’. I would add that, unlike the graduate students, you would be breaking the law. Therefore, it is perhaps best that you remain anonymous if you seriously expect to act on your contempt for those who disagree with you. Anyway, why wouldn’t you want a colleague that is thoughtful and principled? What, you think slack-jawed ‘yes’ men and women make good intellectual colleagues? Give me a break.

Happily, most of your professional colleagues at NYU have found a bit more virtue in the graduate students’ position and have largely supported them. Is NYU’s faculty ‘unprofessional’ in your eyes? Does your arrogance go to that extreme? NYU TAs are often on the front line of teaching. They regularly rate out better than tenure-track professors (they are not incompetent, if anything we should be retiring the Bad English types).

And finally, the generous stipends and conditions that people seem so upset strikers are receiving were negotiated by the union in the first place over the objections of NYU (which spent a few hundred thousand dollars of undergrads money employing a union buster). As Amy points out, if NYU treated these things like ‘pay’ as so many ignorant people seem to think they should, they would undermine their legal position, a legal position that depends upon Bush’s political appointees to find purchase.

In the process of this fight, NYU trampled faculty governance. They have done the same thing again in the current fight. NYU is not an altruistic, charitable organization committed to the betterment of society through education. For academic ‘professionals’ to treat NYU’s position as some sort of defense of the academy just sounds like middle management lackeys defending their superiors—the people who make real decisions about education.

Michael, at 12:15 pm EST on January 28, 2006

Radical Oversimplification

Bad English: “I judge candidates solely on their reliability and professionalism. If I know full well that a candidate has actively contracted to undertake professional labor in the past, and then breached that contract in order to do intentional damage to the non-breaching party, I will not hire that person.”

This is an exceptionally narrow definition of “reliability and professionalism,” which I think many other commentators here have critiqued quite well. Context matters, of course; we can focus on the trees, or we can choose to see the forest. You have willfully oversimplified the labor conflict at NYU. When Amy originally contracted to undertake professional *labor* as part of her fellowship at NYU, it was under the terms of a *union* contract. That contract expired on August 31, 2005, and NYU refused to negotiate another. Just as NYU’s contractual obligations to its laborers have shifted from August forward, so too have the laborers’ obligations to NYU.

As Amy noted in a speech recently, responsibilities come with rights. If indeeed she is engaging in professional *labor* as you say, Bad English, then she is legally entitled to strike for union representation under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Act. As an employer of professional laborers, is NYU not held to comparable standards of “reliability and professionalism?” Your emphasis on the conduct of the graduate employees at NYU, such as Amy’s, to the exclusion of NYU’s conduct exposes your ideological bent. While one is not required to “side” with Amy in this scenario, I would hope that anyone evaluating her particular actions, whether it’s a potential employer or not, would have the wisdom and foresight to contextualize them by taking the facts of the larger labor dispute into consideration. Blinders are best suited for horses, not hiring committee members.

Alex, NYU, at 4:00 pm EST on January 28, 2006

I don’t think it is that hard to understand. Would you feel the same way if someone chose not to teach to observe a religious holiday? Take care of a sick relative? If not, you are discriminating against someone for their views on unionization.

Are conscientious objectors who are declining to observe their citizenship duties unworthy of employment as well?

Michael, at 4:00 pm EST on January 28, 2006

Alas, I’m only 51, so will not retire for a while.

At my university, we don’t have a union and we don’t have “contracts” in the sense described here. When I wanted more money I got an outside offer and got more money.

We have had experience, as a faculty, of not liking our working conditions and negotiating their improvement with the administration— successfully— without holding the students hostage.

I can understand that some will view the students as customers, the tenured faculty as middle managers, the president as the CEO, and the trustees as a corporate board of directors. In this scenario, if the “customers” are hurt in order to improve “worker” rights, then that is fine. Certainly, if Pepsi isn’t delivered for a couple of weeks, the customers just buy Coke, no problem.

I have a different view of academia, and as long as it works for me I will always act on my view, not Amy’s. I do indeed regard turning the students into pawns in a struggle over “working conditions” to be unprofessional. I don’t deny that Amy is entitled under current union law, but that’s not my point.

The only reason I post is because I believe that my view is far more typical than Amy’s among hiring committees. If I’m incorrect, then so much the better for Amy, but I don’t think I am. And so it remains a case of focusing on her short-term TA rights rather than her long-term career prospects. THAT’s a forest/ trees dichotomy if I ever saw one.

I’m reminded of a biography I read about John Reed (the subject of *Reds*). The book described his living conditions at— I seem to recall— Harvard. Appalling by the comfortable standards of today’s undergrads, of course, but that was dorm life back then. Well, John Reed wanted to change the world... he didn’t get bogged down in improving the short-term living conditions of the elite student. (What he accomplished in the real world is another question, but not my point). My point is that apprentice/ training conditions are short-lived, and I think it’s a weird thing to focus on those rather than reforming the conditions that will impact one’s 30- or 40-year career. Grad school years are just a flash in the pan.

If a better life over the next year or two is Amy’s true heart’s desire, then I wish her luck. Personally, when I was in grad school, I was more interested in the career that my short-term discomfort made possible, but I know we all think differently. I do hope Amy doesn’t count on professorial solidarity.

fred duke, at 8:00 pm EST on January 28, 2006

Reality Check

This matter is really very simple. Students apparently feel that their labor is worth more than the university deems to be the case. If students cannot convince the university to offer them what they feel they are worth, they should take their services to other schools that will give them what they demand. I fully anticipate that they will immediately find that their valuation of their own professional worth is wildly inflated. Any number of adjuncts who are already educated and operating in the profession can be brought in to take their places instead.

As for contentions that any questioning of labor unionism is akin to violations of First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion, that’s pretty seriously confused. It does however explain the astonishing tone of the posts here. That tone does nothing to advance the students’ cause. Quite the contrary.

JBM, at 10:55 am EST on January 29, 2006

Deep confusion

Actually, Michael, you are deeply confused. NYU is a private university. The First Amendment does not regulate private actors. NYU can hire whomever it wishes as long as it does not discriminate based on protected characteristics under Civil Right legislation. Again, beyond the question of your basic confusion, your tone does nothing but undermine you.

As for the NLRA, people went on strike. NYU got cover. There is nothing unlawful about that under the statute. It’s called collective bargaining.

JBM, at 3:15 pm EST on January 29, 2006

First of all, I’ll acknowledge that I’m one of the striking graduate assistants whose pay is being docked, so I have a vested interest in this debate. But I also have a more general interest in defending the principles for which higher education supposedly stands, although you wouldn’t know it from reading some of the posts on this site.

The subtext of many of the arguments being made is: other people (adjuncts, sweatshop workers, you name it) have it much worse than you, so why don’t you shut up and stop complaining. Funny, this is the the same rhetoric used by NYU administrators. It is a lousy, specious argument that only serves to pull expectations of living standards down for everyone. If the bar slips for us, you can be sure it will slip for everyone who is below us on the pay scale. I think we all deserve something better, and I don’t know why anyone would listen to corporate hacks and administrators like John Sexton who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year when they say that we should be happy to be making more than the pitiful salary earned by adjuncts.

(On a side note: My uncle drives trains and makes good money — many times my salary. Does this mean that he doesn’t need a union? Of course not. The only reason his job is one of the few lucrative working-class jobs left is because he has a strong union.)

Many people have also implied that we are a bunch of privileged, disaffected rich kids who are making a bogus claim by comparing ourselves to autoworkers. In fact, I can speak for myself and the two other people in my department (Spanish & Portuguese) whose pay is being cut when I say that we were not born with silver spoons in our mouths, and we could not study at NYU were it not for the benefits we have- benefits that were secured by the first union contract. This fight is also about who should have access to higher education.

When the administration claims that we’re not workers, what they’re really saying is: you live in an ivory tower and you ought to be happy to stay there. This is meant to appeal to people’s elitism and to distract them from the fact that universities are corporations and that we are making money for someone else. After all, John Sexton’s model for NYU is that of an “enterprise university.” Both of my parents are or have been unionized workers (factory worker, public school teacher, nurse) and they have no problem identifying what I do as work. This isn’t just because they’re my parents- hundreds of hotel workers, transit workers, etc. have showed up at rallies in support of our strike at NYU.

On a final note: I have no problem being docked pay for the time I strike. But I only went on strike this semester — last semester I was not assigned to teach — and yet I’m losing a year’s pay in advance. This is a penalty designed to intimidate not just strikers, but everyone in the university community who might ever think about crossing the administration. So much for those prized academic freedoms.

Sarah Townsend, Enough of the academic elitism at NYU, at 5:10 pm EST on January 29, 2006

I notice that many of the posts, particularly those by people who choose to post anonymously, are extrememly hostile towards Amy LeClair as an individual. I suppose that its easier to be hostile while hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. In the meantime, I would like to clarify a few points: 1. Amy LeClair is not one individual striking. The graduate student unionization movement existed before Amy LeClair, exists while Amy LeClair is receiving her punishment, and will continue to exist after Amy LeClair is finished being a graduate student. So while you are personally attacking Amy LeClair with thinly veiled threats about her job prospects, sarcastic jokes, and outright insults, I would invite you to actually engage in a dialogue with one of your colleagues or peers. Its real easy to attack a graduate student who you consider of a lower status than you on a website. On that note, there are plenty of scholars who do support the graduate student union movement — they have actually signed a petition that has been sent to John Sexton, and they number over 7,000, including scholars such as Paul Gilroy and Judith Butler. The American Association of University Professors and the Modern Language Associated have also penned letters condemning NYU’s retaliatory actions. Some of these scholars come from universities like Berkeley, University of Chicago, Yale, even, yes, now I recall — Harvard! So these personal attacks on Amy LeClair either come from immature pettiness or ignorance — neither of which are signs of professionalism. 2. The complacency in some of the posts is astonishing to me. In many ways, graduate students are indebted to the generations of academics before us. We all understand that and appreciate the work that was done before us. What we dont appreciate is the idea that because you are satisfied with the status quo, we should be too. Most of the posts admit that during their graduate student years they worked under bad conditions, but they sucked it up. GOOD FOR YOU! If you are willing to be treated like expendable labor and work at universities that make top down administrative decisions that are about an economic bottom line rather than the pursuit of the life of the mind, I applaud you. I also applaud your myriad strategies to realize your own personal professional goals. Some of us, however, realize that an academic community exists, and that unionization improved our academic community, as Canek and Monika pointed out. Most posts are so busy personally attacking Amy LeClair that they dont actually engage the substantive points of anyone’s arguments besides for saying “people disagree with you, and my life as a graduate student sucked so yours should too.” So much for rigorous intellectual debate.

And a special note for “HMS/Name Withheld": Shame on you for posting something so vindictive and ignorant. Are you truly willing to ignore the fact that there are unequal educational outcomes for people of different socioeconomic statuses? Do you believe that people of all incomes have equal access to loans or even the ability to save for college? All so you can have the pleasure of making a silly joke about “Her Majesty". Unbelievable.

Jane, NYU, at 8:20 pm EST on January 29, 2006

JBM,

you just don’t get it. I was responding to bad english who was saying he would discriminate against union activists in hiring decisions—for jobs as professors. The NLRA sanctions employers for this. This law covers all employees who are covered by the NLRA—which includes professors at private universities (as well as every other job category at universities except GAs—but including medical interns—and those considered to be management—deans and other administrators).

The reason that this can exist as a law despite countless efforts to overturn it since it was enacted is because it is rooted in the First Amendment.

I have no idea why you are going on about graduate student recognition. It had nothing whatsoever to do with my point. I have no idea why you think it did or why you insist on dragging out an issue that has Nothing To Do With The Point Being Made. I mean, what is it with you? A great ‘academic professional’ at work.

Michael, at 12:41 pm EST on January 30, 2006

clearing up confusion

Now *you’re* confused, JBM — or deliberately trying to confuse us — because Michael was referring to the NLRA applying to job candidates for assistant professorship positions. Again, his remarks were in response to Bad English’s claim that, as a hiring committee member, s/he wouldn’t hire a person who had struck academic labor in the past.

Michael and the rest of us are more than familiar with the recent NLRB decision stripping NYU grad employees of their status as workers. That’s what prompted the current NYU labor dispute to begin with...

As for your point #5, you seem to imply that we graduate assistants are asking NYU to give us more, to value our labor at a higher price. Not so. We’re merely asking for a second union contract, the terms of which are up for negotiation (at a bargaining table, of course).

Alex, NYU, at 12:51 pm EST on January 30, 2006

Michael seems full of sarcasm today. There is a real danger in so-called ‘academic professionals’ such as Michael taking a personal interest in the NYU strike. That danger lies in losing perspective on the wider picture, and in misadvising students.

Just because *you* think something is right does not make it right in the eyes of a larger culture. Your values are your own, but how many pro-union/sympathetic academics might one expect to find in a given department, on a given tenure committee, in a given administration at a major university?

We’re often reminded of the junior faculty member at NYU who was allegedly denied tenure for his sympathetic union activities. Whether you believe that employers *don’t* retaliate or *shouldn’t* retaliate for union activities is irrelevant to the fact that people *are* judged on their vociferous decisions, some of which may appear highly unprofessional and uncollegial to the outside world.

While I don’t mean to put further pressure on graduate students who act impulsively, Ms. LeClair should think twice about her comments in the future. Her tone in that article is not one I would consider colleagial or remotely polite. She is not a twelve year old, but an adult. Time to start acting like one.

JS, at 5:00 pm EST on January 31, 2006

Going Back to the Basics

I am not a graduate student at NYU (I attend school elsewhere); however, I do find this discussion interesting. Perhaps, I can add to this debate. Also, I would like to apologize in advance for any grammatical, conceptual flaws in my statements, as I don’t have much time to commit to writing this piece.

Maybe, instead of simply launching rhetorical laced diatribes at each other, we can analyze GSOC’s basic argument. We can then determine the veracity of GSOC’s claims based on whether or not their arguments “hold water.” From what I can gather, these are the principle contentions that GSOC uses in order to buttress their demand that NYU certify their union.

GSOC claims that, at some point in the past, NYU did not resemble a corporation. Instead, the institution represented the antithesis to the business model. Its faculty and staff, including the upper administration, upheld ideals of fairness, equality, free inquiry, etc., which contrasted starkly with those in place at companies like IBM. Additionally, the university, while it did have to protect its interests in some matters, nonetheless adhered to altruistic notions of public service and scholarship whenever it could safely do so.

In these halcyon days, a graduate assistant might have been accurate if he or she referred to themselves as apprentices. During this period, the faculty and administrators worked to insure that graduate assistantships were primarily used as training vehicles. They did not seek to exploit the graduate students who taught in their classes or who performed research for professors. The academic environment was one in which both students and professors felt that they had a “voice;” the school’s administrators maintained a healthy dialogue with these groups. Further, NYU, out of concern for the welfare of its graduate student population (specifically those in the humanities and social sciences), worked (with other institutions) to insure that it did not create an oversupply of graduate students. Perhaps its motto went something like this, “An academic job for every Ph.D. graduate who wants one.”

Alas, in recent years, the university, spurred on by the self-interested motives of its upper administration, has changed course. Over the last few decades, it has eschewed many of its traditional, altruistically minded principles in favor of neo-liberal, business oriented ones. It has reached the point now where NYU operates like a corporation whose primary goal is to maximize its resources and its prestige. In correlation with this fact, the school’s administration has come to view all of its stakeholders either as producers (workers) or as consumers. It utilizes the old language of camaraderie and community only to masks its true worldview, which is based on neo-liberal principles.

GSOC argues (and believes) that these changes both legitimate and necessitate the formation (or the continuance in this case) of a graduate union. For one thing, since the university acts like a corporation and treats its graduate students as producers, they have a right to be called workers and thus to unionize (since all workers, except for managerial staff have this right). Second, the graduate workers contend that the commodified, hierarchical environment no longer adheres to ideals of fairness, equality, and free inquiry. Rather it favors the powerful, and the university administration is much more powerful than any one post-baccalaureate. Therefore, graduate students have to unionize in order to protect their individual rights, as the only way for them to achieve anything in this power-laden culture (to “make their voices heard") is through collective action. Finally (and ironically considering that their other argument seems to accept the inevitability of NYU Inc.), the graduate workers see themselves in a heroic sense, as dissidents who aim to push the neo-liberals out of the academy and reinstitute an institutional structure that supports democratic, egalitarian values.

Given this information, GSOC is right to demand that NYU certify its union if NYU (for brevity’s sake, I’m disregarding the fact that NYU is a complex structure) at one time was committed to non-market values and has since changed its view on this issue by adopting a corporate structure. The corporatization of the university is vitally important to GSOC’s argument. If this statement is false, the graduate workers would have no right to demand a union, even if they served in non-apprenticeship roles. This is because the university’s structure, whether viewed in terms of its administrative staff or its culture in general, would still honor the right of each individual to demand a fair wage.

If GSOC is correct in regarding NYU as a corporate structure, its demand for unionization would be a valid one regardless of whether or not its students were currently putting in work hours that exceeded the amount, which is required of “apprentices.” This is because these students would have no guarantee that the university, as a self-interested actor, would not try to exploit their labor at some future point.

So, after that long winded piece, I think that it all boils down to whether or not NYU’s structure has been corporatized. If NYU bears more of a resemblance to Wal-Mart than it does to a democratic, public structure (as defined in the first part of this response), GSOC is within its right to demand a union. If NYU has imbibed some neo-liberal, management practices, but still adheres to the old ideas (as mentioned previously in this response), then GSOC does not “have a leg to stand on.”

In light of this fact, maybe some posters can provide evidence/arguments, which either support or refute the claim that NYU has become corporatized?

Grad Student, at 5:10 am EST on February 11, 2006