PRESS RELEASE: Boycott of New School Events Announced as University Withholds Pay of Striking Faculty

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 6, 2022

Media Contact: Zoe Carey, president@actuaw.org, 718-986-1736

The New School administration announced on Monday night that, starting Wednesday, the university will withhold the wages, including contributions to healthcare coverage, for all faculty who continue to strike.

In response to these aggressive moves against workers, the academic and cultural community at large is boycotting The New School: refusing to appear at any events at or affiliated with the university. Those who have pledged to boycott The New School include Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Judith Butler, Naomi Klein, and Art Spiegelman.

The threat to strip workers of wages and health insurance is an extraordinarily hostile move, throwing almost the entirety of the university’s faculty into significant financial insecurity. The part-time faculty, which constitutes 87 percent of the school’s teaching staff, is now on its fourth week of strike, as representatives from our union continue fraught negotiations with the university through a mediator. Having picketed for 21 days, the part-time faculty strike is now the longest adjunct strike in the nation’s history.

Despite the union making huge concessions in order to reach a contract agreement, including halving the compensation package originally requested, the university continues with extreme intransigence –preferring to threaten faculty livelihoods rather than make real movement towards a deal.

Even after weeks of aggressive union-busting tactics and manipulative messaging, the university’s decision to cut pay has shocked faculty, students and parents. The New School has also threatened full-time faculty members and graduate student workers with having their pay withheld, should they refuse to cross the picket line. Full-time faculty members and students have shown consistent, robust support for the striking part-time professors, including canceling and boycotting public events hosted by The New School during the strike. Dozens of events, from concerts to public lectures, have been canceled thanks to the organized boycott.

By threatening the livelihoods of those joining the strike in solidarity, the university is pitting its workers against each other, while stoking the fears of our students – these tactics are typical of corporate behemoths, not purportedly progressive institutions, as The New School claims to be.

In yet another embarrassing anti-worker move, The New School last week sent out an email attempting to hire unqualified, temporary “reviewers” to grade students’ work, stating that reviewers “need not have a background” in the subject matter of the course. Rather than reaching a deal with its part-time faculty, such that students can be graded by their highly qualified professors, the university openly called for scab labor. Following outcry over the university’s email, the administration then backtracked the next day, claiming that the hiring request was a draft sent out in error.

Meanwhile, a group of 1,500-plus aggrieved parents have signed on to a potential class action lawsuit, threatening a tuition strike, a demand for reimbursement and other possible legal action, should The New School not end the strike by immediately offering its professors a fair deal.

The part-time faculty, represented by UAW 7902, has shown itself willing to make major compromises in order to reach a deal and return to class for the semester’s end – as all professors are desperate to do. The union is asking for a contract that – accounting for inflation – does not entail to a pay cut over time; healthcare benefits no worse than in the part-time faculty’s previous contract; and the right to file grievances with recourse to a third party in cases of harassment or discrimination. In turn, the school has treated its workers, on whom the institution wholly relies, with stunning disrespect.

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About ACT-UAW 7902: Founded in 2002, ACT-UAW Local 7902 represents over 5,000 part-time and adjunct teachers, student educators, and healthcare workers. It consists of four units: the NYU Adjuncts, New School part-time faculty, student employees at The New School, and New School student health service employees.