12/9: Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 9, 2022
Media Contact: Zoe Carey, president@actuaw.org, 718-986-1736
Part-Time Faculty Strike Continues at The New School as University Attempts Healthcare Cuts
Facing a boycott of all New School events by world-renowned performers, designers, and authors; a potential class action lawsuit by 1500 parents; and an onslaught of bad press after attempting to hire scab replacements, the university has at last seen fit to make some movement on part-time faculty pay.
The part-time faculty are encouraged by this movement, but will continue their picket until the university and the union find agreement on many outstanding issues, including health insurance. The New School administration continues to insist on unilateral control over health care plan design and out of pocket cost, potentially eliminating any improvements made in compensation. They have also shown no movement on several non-economic issues critical to faculty safety, such as independent recourse when faculty experience harassment or discrimination.
The part-time faculty Bargaining Committee were distressed to learn that at this late stage they had to educate the university’s team about the contract, both what’s in the current contract and how their proposals change eligibility for existing benefits. The union has repeatedly shown that the university is better off spending their capital on their teachers instead of high-priced outside counsel unfamiliar with our Collective Bargaining Agreement and working conditions.
The university has also continued their strike breaking activities throughout week four of picketing. Alongside cutting the striking part-time faculty’s pay, they have asked that all workers sign weekly surveys attesting to having performed work duties – an unambiguous effort to intimidate workers from continuing to strike. Rather than bargaining over the issues affecting 87% of their teachers, the university’s approach was to unilaterally change the terms and conditions of part-time faculty employment, potentially in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. This action attempted to restrain employees from engaging in protected activities guaranteed to them under federal labor law, and the union has now filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board to remedy any actions by the New School that the board determines unlawful.
Because this potentially unlawful attestation form was applied to all New School workers striking in solidarity, the Local 7902 SENS unit of academic student employees has filed their own Unfair Labor Practice charge against the university. Similarly, the non-union full-time faculty have responded to the university’s union-busting actions by announcing that they will begin deliberations over a vote of “no confidence” in The New School President Dwight McBride and other senior administrators. The full-time faculty are also exploring other legal challenges to the university’s withholding of pay and benefits.
“Leaving aside the legality of this unilateral change in our contracts, this is straight up strikebreaking,” wrote Paulo De Santos, Associate Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research, on Twitter. “That is the opposite of the values on which the New School was founded a little over one hundred years ago.”
The part-time faculty has also gone on residential pickets of the homes of The New School’s Board of Trustees. Board members vote on the university’s budget and it is in their power to restructure their financing to enable 87% of the faculty to have a survivable living wage in one of the most expensive cities in the world. It is the union’s hope that they will be moved by these pickets to reshape their budget so part-time faculty wages will not be undercut by skyrocketing insurance premiums in the new contract.
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CORRECTION: A previous version of this release referred to a lawsuit filed by 1500 parents of New School students. Upon confirmation with the parents involved in that action, we have corrected the text to say that the lawsuit is “potential,” and has not yet been filed.
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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.