AAUP President Jane Buck submitted an opinion editorial to the New York Times in support of the graduate student union at New York University.
As the voice of the higher education profession and leading advocate, for almost a century, for the highest academic standards, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) deplores the decision of the administration of New York University (NYU) to sever bargaining relations with its graduate student union. Although a recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) permits, but does not mandate, such action, AAUP believes that it is not only ethically questionable, but educationally unsound. Colleges and universities should be held to a higher standard than profit-seeking corporations and serve as models for the society. It is morally incumbent upon the NYU administration to honor the democratically determined wishes of its most vulnerable employees, the graduate teaching assistants who have expressed their desire to be unionized. There is no legal bar to their doing so and many reasons why that is the proper course of action.
The administration of NYU claims that the decision to break ties with the union, a United Auto Workers local, was based in part on the premise that allowing graduate students serving as teaching assistants to have bargaining rights jeopardizes the traditional roles of professor and student. The argument essentially avers that teaching assistants represented by a union are inevitably in an adversarial relationship with their faculty mentors. That position is rendered tenuous and indefensible by the fact that a clear majority of NYU faculty supports the teaching assistants in their efforts to obtain a new contract. The NYU chapter of AAUP has reinforced that position by organizing an initiative called Faculty Democracy to oppose the administration’s action and to clarify the nature of decision-making at NYU. At least 200 faculty members are active participants in that effort. It is both disingenuous and risible to assert that the mentoring relationship is harmed by good faith negotiations about salaries, benefits, and access to fair grievance procedures.
It would appear that the decision to sever ties with the union was motivated by a desire to continue to exploit the graduate teaching assistants, who are part of an increasingly impotent and exploited cadre of the academy that includes part-time faculty. They spend a major portion of their time and effort in lecturing, grading papers, and monitoring examinations, in other words performing the teaching duties of a professor.
It is in the best interest of every component of a university, especially the undergraduates for whom teaching assistants are, in far too many cases, their closest contact with the faculty, that those who teach have the best possible resources at their disposal. Most graduate teaching assistants are future professors who are expected to master a body of knowledge and contribute to it through their own research. Too frequently, they are forced to perform their duties with minimal administrative support. They perform these functions for minimal pay, with inadequate office space, and little or no access to health benefits. Without the backing of a strong union, they are virtually powerless.
Graduate students have, for many years, been able to join AAUP as non-voting members. This year we granted graduate student members full voting rights and the right to hold office at every level of the organization. This action reinforces our 2000 "Statement on Graduate Students,” which says, in part, "As the Association’s Council affirmed in November 1998, graduate student assistants, like other campus employees, should have the right to organize to bargain collectively."
Jane Buck
President
American Association of University Professors