Tag Archives: NYU

NYU Adjuncts Win Pay Increases and Benefits for Summer Work

The Chronicle: NYU Adjuncts Win Pay Increases and Benefits for Summer Work
April 18, 2011, 6:33 pm

New York University’s 2,400 adjunct faculty members will receive substantial pay increases and benefits for the summer hours they work under the terms of a new contract with the private institution. The agreement, ratified last week, is the product of tough negotiations that had left adjunct faculty members poised to go on strike. In an attempt to deal with the earnings gap between adjunct faculty members who teach credit-bearing courses and the lesser-paid adjunct faculty members who teach noncredit courses, the contract calls for all adjunct faculty members’ pay to rise by the same dollar amount, so that the latter group will see its pay climb at a steeper rate. (The $4-per-contact-hour increase in the contract’s first year amounts to about a 3.6 percent raise for those who teach credit-bearing courses and a 6.7 percent increase for those who teach noncredit courses.) The agreement also builds on gains won by adjunct faculty members in their 2004 contract by, for the first time, offering health insurance, job security, and retirement benefits to those who work in the summer.

Labor Board Gives NYU Graduate Students Another Shot at Union Vote

The Chronicle: Labor Board Gives NYU Graduate Students Another Shot at Union Vote

The National Labor Relations Board this week reversed a regional director’s decision that had stymied efforts by graduate teaching and research assistants at New York University to vote on union representation.

Monday’s 2-to-1 decision does not give the graduate assistants the green light to engage in collective bargaining, but it does say that they deserve a full hearing on their request for a union vote. The regional director had rejected that request in June without a hearing, citing a 2004 decision by the national board that halted unionization of teaching assistants at private colleges on the grounds that they were students, not workers.

Singaporean Scholar, a Foe of Gay Rights, Cancels Plans to Teach at NYU

The Chronicle: Singaporean Scholar, a Foe of Gay Rights, Cancels Plans to Teach at NYU

A law professor from Singapore has canceled plans to teach at New York University this fall following an uproar on the campus over her statements in opposition to homosexuality.

Rights for Some People

Inside Higher Ed: Rights for Some People

Should someone who teaches human rights back human rights for all people?

That’s the question being raised by some students at New York University’s law school, who are upset that a visiting professor in the fall semester, slated to teach human rights law, is Thio Li-ann of the National University of Singapore, an outspoken opponent of gay rights. Thio has argued repeatedly and graphically that her country should continue to criminalize gay sexual acts.

Bush Gone, NYU Scrambles to Escape Anticipated NLRB Ruling

howtheuniversityworks.com: Bush Gone, NYU Scrambles to Escape Anticipated NLRB Ruling

While I was on the road, I heard from NYU students and faculty about the administration’s plan to restructure graduate education in response to the appointments of Liebman and Solis, which most observers feel will trigger a reversal of the absurd Brown decision, to which Liebman provided a scathing dissent. (That was the ruling that the Bush mob unapologetically used to overturn the landmark, unanimous, and bipartisan GSOC-UAW ruling that forced NYU to the table.)

New Idea on Grad Students, Unions at NYU

Inside Higher Ed: New Idea on Grad Students, Unions

New York University has been the site of a historic breakthrough for the push to unionize graduate teaching assistants — and a bitter strike to preserve the union, which ended in failure, without collective bargaining. NYU administrators are now floating an idea that would give graduate students the right to join the university’s adjunct union.

The idea is linked to improvements NYU is considering in doctoral students’ funding packages. Currently, students receive five years of support, but some of the support is linked to teaching for two or four semesters. The NYU plan would end the teaching requirement. Graduate students would still be encouraged to teach, but any teaching assignments would be paid on top of their fellowships. For those assignments, they would be treated as adjuncts, and covered by NYU’s adjunct union.