The Strike at NYU
The strike at New York University is entering its second week. Local 2110 of the UAW represents graduate teaching assistants at the university, who organized a union to protest the fact that teaching assistants increasingly handle a huge workload of teaching, preparing coursework and grading papers and exams. The union won recognition from the university and a contract in 2002. It was the first of its kind, as the Clinton-appointed National Labor Relations Board had only recently ruled that graduate teaching fellows are “workers” under the law, entitled to protections under the law as a union. As swiftly as those new rights were granted by the Clinton Board, they were taken away by the Bush Board, who ruled that teaching fellows are not “workers,” do not have a right to form a union and are not entitled to protection under the law from retaliation and discrimination. NYU, always looking to […]