A giant inflatable rat may have replaced the Violet as New York University’s mascot. After the recent expiration of their union contract, the first of its kind in an American private school, NYU’s Graduate Student Organizing Committee went on strike. Basically, the school offered them union benefits in exchange for not acting so much like a union, and they refused. The strike highlights the importance of unions for graduate workers, including those at Columbia University.
Most of these schools’ administrators argue that graduate students do not have the right to form unions because they function as students rather than employees. Teaching, they argue, constitutes another part of the educational experience, and their salaries are really only a form of financial aid. If grad students refuse to participate in that area of their education, however, the “financial aid” disappears, and the university can no longer function. If all the grad students left, a university wouldn’t need more people who wanted to learn -i- t would need more people to work for it. Clearly, in performing a service for pay, graduate students act as employees.
Administrators know this, but they refuse to acknowledge it—doing so would require them to spend a moderate amount of money in order to treat some of the most instrumental members of the academic community as more than just instruments. The NYU situation proves that, even if graduate students aren’t technically employees, they still derive basic benefits from unions that universities otherwise won’t give them. A contract between the school and the GSOC improved working conditions, increased stipends 40 percent, and guaranteed health insurance, all of which the school should have provided all along.
These effects spread to Columbia, where administrators raised stipends slightly higher than those at NYU. Later, the Columbia Graduate Student Employees United managed to earn a dental plan, also largely a result of actions at NYU. This demonstrates not only the efficacy of unions, but the potential for Columbia graduate students to learn from their NYU counterparts. Tactics like not announcing the end of a strike in advance, as they did last year, go a long way.
To their credit, Columbia grad student-workers have expressed solidarity with the NYU cause, and many have joined their picket lines. Joint actions like this make the dissatisfaction of the workers that much more apparent. They also remind administrations just how much they depend on graduate labor…
Even the most cold-hearted administrator has to admit that better working conditions allow workers to do their jobs better, especially in an academic scenario. Teachers can’t teach lessons if they’re distracted by hunger or a fever or a toothache, so it only makes sense to give them enough money to buy food and to provide them with health and dental benefits. Treating people well has a high margin of return, especially if they keep a university running.
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