NYU grad student strike update

As part of this week's Majikthise Pledge Drive, Lewis Powell requested an update on the NYU grad student strike.

The NYU grad student strike passed the 100 day mark on Thurdsay the 16 of February. Some striking students returned to work at the beginning of the term when the university administration threatened to yank their funding unless they returned to work, but others are continuing their job action. As of February 21, twenty-five strikers have had their pay docked.

Nerds on Strike reports that GSOC members showed up to picket President Sexton at the UN last week.

The students are striking for the recognition of their union. The university stopped recognizing the grad student union after the National Labor Relations Board ruled, incongruously, that teaching and research assistants at private universities aren't workers.

See NYU Strike Archive for regularly updated news on the strike. (NYU Inc.)

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Comments

[Eli]

Lewis Powell the Supreme Court Justice, or Lewis Powell the Lincoln assassination conspirator?

[Lewis Powell]

None of the above.

[Eli]

Damn it!

[elana]

Thanks for keeping us updated on the fight. I know a lot of the organizers and students because they endorsed the candidate I worked for this past summer. My blog had a professor that was involved with the prof's support of the Grad workers guest for a few weeks. Because the press doesn't cover it there is a real need for bloggers to keep track of developments.

I'm glad to see that the NYT labor writer Steven Greenwald is in the paper more and more though.

[Terry McMahon]

You should know that the strikers have taken to disruption tactics at this point. If you're interested in hearing the various ways they've impeded the abilities of NYU Law students - who, note, don't have grad-student TAs - to obtain specifically public-interest funding, which theoretically would be similar to GSOC's goals.

In any event, I have never seen so bad a public-relations campaign. GSOC is hell-bent on turning public support against them. At the beginning of the year I was willing to listen. Now I just want them expelled.