Bargaining Sessions 16, 17 & 18 | October 20, 25, 27
We want a fair deal.
This past week, the part-time faculty bargaining team responded to the cruel proposals that the university made earlier in October. We made clear that we are willing to make compromises to reach a deal that works for faculty, our students, and the university as a whole. The university’s negotiations team, however, continues to simply reject many of our proposals without offering alternatives.
Healthcare
The part-time faculty bargaining team REJECTED the university’s proposal to take away healthcare coverage from a subset of Mannes faculty members and their families. We held firm on our proposal to expand health insurance eligibility to more faculty and to ensure that the university cannot drastically hike out-of-pocket costs as it did in 2021. Read and view our proposal here.
Compensation
The bargaining team rejected the university’s proposal for a measly 2% raise in contact-hour rates in the first year, with raises in future years ranging from .75% to 4.5%. Our overarching goals with our compensation proposal are to create pay parity with full-time faculty and ensure that faculty are paid for all of their work, both in class and out of class. To this end, we tweaked our initial proposal so that it would cost the university slightly less but still achieve the goals outlined above. Read and view our proposal here.
Reappointment
The bargaining team rejected the university’s proposal to allow the administration to leave long-time faculty members’ baseloads unfulfilled in the event that they teach several sections of the same course. Our overarching goals with this proposal are to 1) provide long-time faculty with greater baseload protections and the opportunity to teach more courses and 2) ensure that newer faculty have a path to annualization and a guaranteed minimum of two courses upon annualization. We edited our proposal to address the university’s concerns that, under our previous proposal, it would be required to offer more courses than it could financially support. Read and view our proposal here.
Does the university want a deal?
The university REJECTED the following proposals without offering an alternative to any of them:
Provide part-time faculty with a real say over their program or department’s curriculum.
Provide part-time faculty with real recourse against harassment and discrimination.
Expand paid academic leave benefits.
Ensure faculty have necessary classroom supplies and a stipend to pay guest speakers.
Ensure that the university complies with OSHA regulations and provides greater protection to part-time faculty who are susceptible to negative outcomes from infectious diseases such as COVID-19, or who live with someone who is susceptible.
Provide part-time faculty with an advance payment before the semester begins to reflect the work faculty do prior to the first day of classes.
Establish a paid mentorship program under which long-time faculty could be paid to mentor newer faculty.
Enable union reps to assist and file grievances on behalf of members who do not get adequate disability accommodations.
Protect part-time faculty members’ intellectual property rights.
What the University Says Publicly vs. in Bargaining
Our union is democratic. The members of our bargaining committee all teach at The New School as part-time faculty.
The university asked our team to meet with them for bargaining sessions 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday, November 7th to November 11th.
Our team indicated that we could meet at these times, but that we would need the university’s permission to find subs or reschedule our classes that week to be able to bargain all day.
The university responded that it would only allow this if our bargaining team agreed to extend our contract to the end of this year.
Given the university’s delays over the summer and early fall, we told the university that we would not agree to such an extension at this time. The university, in turn, refused to grant our team the right to find subs and/or reschedule their classes that week.
This episode is emblematic of the contrast between the university’s public statements to the university community and what it communicates to part-time faculty in bargaining. Publicly, the university states that it values part-time faculty and wants to reach an agreement. In bargaining, however, the university disrespects the part-time faculty’s democratically elected leaders.
Attend Bargaining
Interested in hearing what the university says at the bargaining table? You can attend bargaining by RSVP’ing here. Bargaining is open to part-time faculty union members.
Strike Authorization Vote
As a result of the university’s repeated delays and cruel proposals, the part-time faculty bargaining committee urges you to vote “yes” to authorize a strike. A strike authorization vote doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll go on strike. A successful vote will give the elected bargaining committee the ability to call a strike, if circumstances justify.
If the part-time faculty vote to authorize a strike, the earliest possible date that a strike could occur is November 14th.
To vote:
An email ballot was sent to your @newschool email at 8am on Monday, October 31st.
The email had the subject line: “STRIKE AUTHORIZATION VOTE BALLOT”
The email was from “ACT-UAW Local 7902 <noreply@electionrunner.com>.”
Click on the link in the email and follow the directions.
Questions? Email organizer@actuaw.org