ACT-UAW Local 7902

A letter from ACT-UAW Local 7902 regarding recent activity at The New School.

A statement from our union President and Unit Chairs on The New School’s immoral targeting of vulnerable students at the Gaza solidarity encampment.

Our Executive Board’s statement on the events of Monday, April 22, at NYU. Sign-on to our statement is in our bio.

More info at bit.ly/ceasefirenyc

Happy strikeversary to all who celebrate!

Part-Time Faculty walked out on strike one year ago today, in what became the longest adjunct or part-time faculty strike in US history.

Please take a look at this letter published in Washington Square News
And please spread the word.

Guest Essay: A letter from NYU’s adjunct union to president Mills An Open Letter to Linda Mills, President, New York University: We appreciate your commitment to leading by listening to the diverse voices of the university. We took it to heart when, in the March 30, 2023 issue of the Washington Square News, you said that you “believe that all employees of NYU, u...

Hello! Please sign on to this Collective Action Letter in support of the Adjuncts at NYU. In just a week and a half we already have over 1,100 people who signed on. Parents, Students, Adjuncts, Full-time Faculty, Union siblings are all signing on to support. Help us reach 2,500 by August 18!

Sign the Collective Action Letter in Support of NYU Adjuncts | ACT-UAW 7902 An Open Letter to Linda Mills, President, New York University: We appreciate your commitment to leading by listening to the diverse voices of the university. We took it to heart when, in the March 30, 2023, issue of the Washington Square News, you said that you “believe that all employees of NYU, ...

https://www.instagram.com/p/CvfWvVxN4a2/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Workers in Unity

We write to you in solidarity with ACT-UAW Local 7902 NYU Adjunct Union following the ongoing retaliation from University administration against adjunct faculty across all departments-especially the Liberal Studies Program, which houses the largest number of courses taught by part-time adjunct and full-time contract (non-tenure track) instructors, and the School of Professional Studies. #nyustudentgov #nyu #adjunctlife #nyc #university #solidarity #unionstrong

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=311013151295496&set=a.198783379185141&type=3&mibextid=cr9u03
UAW International Union
UAW Region 9A

In Tuesday's FB Live, President Shawn Fain announced the Members' Demands for Big Three Bargaining:

• Eliminate tiers on wages & benefits
• Substantial wage increases
• Restore COLA (cost of living adjustment)
• Defined benefit pension for all workers
• Re-establish retiree medical benefits
• Right to strike over plant closures
• Working family protection program
• End abuse of temp workers
• More paid time off to be with families
• Significantly increase retiree pay

President Fain said, "When the Big Three say the future’s uncertain and that the EV transition is expensive, remember that they’ve made a quarter of a trillion in North American profits over the last decade and have poured billions of it in special dividends, stock buybacks, and supersized executive compensation. Our message going into negotiations is clear; Record Profits mean Record Contracts.”

The UAW is getting back in the fight, and that’s what the Big Three are going to find out when we head into bargaining this week to deliver our union’s economic demands.

Bargaining is not a one-person show. Those days are gone and so is the false belief that union contracts are won solely by the President. They’re not. They’re won by the members. They’re won by all of us organizing together around the issues that unite us and collectively demanding what we are owed.”

🔗 Watch the entire FB live with President Fain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3jazbdbP_Y

Share your thoughts about the Members' Demands in the comments ⬇️

https://www.facebook.com/100071604399884/posts/291972943199517/?mibextid=cr9u03
🚗🚗🚗
Academic workers stand in solidarity with autoworkers and with all workers everywhere!
How are you wearing red today?
Show us your red shirt (or red bandana) for Solidarity Wednesday.
Post a selfie in the comments or hashtag .
Solidarity!

🚗🚗🚗

Academic workers stand in solidarity with autoworkers and with all workers everywhere!

How are you wearing red today?

Show us your red shirt (or red bandana) for Solidarity Wednesday.

Post a selfie in the comments or hashtag .

Solidarity!

Members from UAW Region 9A in NYC participated in the Q***r Liberation March today, marching with the “Left and Labor Bloc” fighting for the liberation of LGBTQIA+ workers and all people!

UAW Region 9A
ACT-UAW Local 7902
Association of Legal Aid Attorneys - Local 2325
Postdoctoral Workers - Local 4100
Student Workers of Columbia - UAW Local 2710
Sinai Postdoctoral Organizing Committee
UAW Local 2110

Fantastic!

Coming up at 12 noon June 21, 2023. Media Strategy Session for NYU adjunct professors and supporters. Registration link below.

If you are an NYU adjunct professor, or supporter of NYU adjunct professors, please come on Wednesday to a Media Strategy session.
Registration necessary: https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrf-yoqzgsH9YGowUMNPUy3KPWxI43R-em #/registration

NYU Adjunct Town Hall Local 7902 Reappointment Rights, SPS. Everyone is invited to attend the meeting.Zoom Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIsdOCvrToiGN2c7xCuBI2CkqLRx1ARVhPV

NYU faculty stand together to fight mass layoffs for adjuncts!

Read the statement from NYU-AAUP:

https://ow.ly/PTbF50OJHEC

"NYU is Union-Busting in Sweeping Effort to Renege on Landmark Contract

Last fall, NYU adjunct faculty in ACT-UAW Local 7902 won a landmark collective bargaining agreement, moving NYU from the poverty wages that it had previously paid adjunct faculty and closer to compensation commensurate with the value that adjunct labor creates for the university.

Now, as schedules are drawn up for the coming academic year, it has become clear that NYU has chosen to retaliate, reducing adjuncts’ course loads, in some cases entirely, perfunctorily leaving adjuncts—many of whom have been teaching multiple courses at the university for more than a decade—without a livelihood; rescheduling courses at a time that makes them highly likely to be under-enrolled, and therefore canceled; raising enrollment caps, also making it more likely that courses will be under-enrolled, and therefore canceled; and cutting the number of classroom hours allotted for courses, taking pay away from adjuncts and time in the classroom away from students (whose tuition fees, we venture to presume, it has no plans to reduce accordingly).

Adjuncts at NYU were heartened finally to be paid more reasonable wages for our work; now we face full or partial layoffs and the threat of gradually being shut out of our jobs as our courses are transferred to co-workers with fewer protections as to the amount of work they’re assigned and how they're compensated for it. The NYU administration likes to claim that all of its employees are valued members of the university community. Yet time and again it makes it unmistakably clear that it regards adjunct faculty as so much disposable labor, for whose work, lives, and wellbeing it has no regard at all.

There is no academic rationale for this aggressive managerial action. In no way does it serve the university’s educational mission or the interests of its individual programs and students."

Join the UAW Region 9A: Rank & File Assembly on May 8!

In the UAW, members are the highest authority in our union.

That’s why UAW Region 9A is excited to invite all members to the first meeting of the UAW Region 9A Rank-and-File Assembly on Monday, May 8.

The Rank-and-File Assembly (or RFA for short) will be the first-ever region-wide meeting space led by and for rank-and-file members from every unit, local, and sector of our region—because every member is an organizer.

Who can join?

All UAW-9A dues-paying members and union staff can join. That means union members from all of region 9A: NY(NYC, the Hudson Vally, Capital District Area), CT, MA, RI, NH, VT, ME, and PR.

When do we meet?

Generally, meetings will be held every 2 months.
The first meeting is Monday, May 8 at 6 pm ET.

What are the meetings about?

Cross-industry and cross-workplace organizing to develop industry-specific strategies, wage campaigns beyond contract negotiations, and more.

How do I sign up?
Scan the QR code!

Or go to the sign-up link below
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdxws0lfWrUpKsAZMgwaady3zWQ0HD84s0HBaB4DCTqea6_pA/viewform

Let’s rebuild worker power in our union starting on May 8!

In solidarity,

ACT-UAW Local 7902

Hello Members of ACT-UAW Local 7902!

Check your email for information on the 2023 Triennial Elections.

The elections are run by your Local’s Election Committee. All questions about the elections should be directed to the following email: [email protected]

Voting for the Triennial 2023 Elections will take place online from May 8th at 12 am through May 9th at 8pm EST. The election results will be sent by email to all members and posted on the local’s website on Thursday, May 11.

All members will receive 1 email that contains 2 ballots. The first ballot is for all members where they will vote on the Executive Board Positions: 2nd VP and TRUSTEES. Only NYU members will move on to the 2nd ballot where they will vote for NYU UNIT CHAIR and NYU JOINT COUNCIL.

If you have any access requests, please contact the Election Committee at [email protected]

Candidate Statements are posted on the ACT-UAW website: www.actuaw.org

"Sometimes people's care for their workplace gets weaponized and used against them.

Just remember, you don’t have to hate your job to want a union.

It's about democracy.

Trying to make your workplace a bit more fair is an act of love & care, not reckless opposition."

Art by Sam Wallman via

"The wave of union organizing that is crashing over the US right now is the best reason to feel good about politics that I’ve found in years.

For every law passed declaring that corporations are people, there’s a silent understanding that the organizations that workers build to agitate for themselves are where the real people are- and where the power is."

words and art by Roger Peet for

“I see [universities] being destroyed by austerity, and I see The New School being destroyed by it too,” said event speaker Julie Napolin, president of TNS’ chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

Student workers hope to unionize as they critique the New School's "austerity" - The New School Free Press A group hoping to unionize New School student workers has started organizing potential members by highlighting the university’s union-busting tactics and critiquing the school’s financial practices. In a rally, the undergraduate student leaders of The New Student Workers Union (NSWU), mobilized ...

Austerity builds walls, not bridges.

Hiring outside firms allows the New School’s Executive Leadership to hide behind consultants as protective barriers. These barriers prevent students and parents from having direct access to leadership which also allows leadership to elude accountability.

As frustration grows due to lack of access and accountability so does division between students, parents, staff, and faculty. Executive Leadership encourages division so they can enact austerity measures without resistance.

Divided we are weak. But when we come together in solidarity we are powerful.

Let's build a stronger community, one that works for all of us!

See you at the Rally Against Austerity!

All are welcome to join the conversation!

Rally Against Austerity
Tuesday, April 11 @ 3pm
Lang Courtyard

Faculty, students, and staff at the New School are barraged with emails filled with flowery language about “healing,” “complex times,” “inclusivity,” “deep listening,” and “thoughtful, actionable, sustainable, strategic plans.”

The New School founders outlined basic principles for an inclusive and equitable institution in 1919.

In the “proposal for an independent school,” they wrote:

“Eliminate presidents and deans . . . and cut the overhead expenses to the minimum. Secure a sufficient endowment on the understanding that the greater part of the income be spent on research and education. . . ”

We don’t need a “reimagining” to create an equitable school. Here are some proven solutions that work:

-affordable tuition
-accessible healthcare
-safe housing
-fair pay
-access to services, such as CoVid testing

Instead of hiring an outside firm to "listen, deeply, with care," and “reimagine” the university on the behalf of the Executive Leadership team, the Executive Leadership team could simply take responsibility and positive steps to repair our community.

Instead, the Executive Leadership chooses to enforce austerity measures time and time again. We’ve seen this trick before.

Rather than manipulating the community with flowery language and demanding unpaid labor from students and faculty, the Executive Leadership should give the community what it deserves: honesty, transparency, and respect.

Instead of bombarding the community with emails about “healing,” the Executive Leadership can stop enacting austerity measures that hurt our community (like ending food stipends for student workers, understaffing and underpaying student advisors, raising healthcare costs, etc..)

When will the executive leadership actually face the community its meant to serve, instead of hiring outside firms to act as intermediaries?

All welcome to join the conversation!

Rally Against Austerity
Tuesday, April 11 @ 3pm
Lang Courtyard

“Reimagine” TNS?

Let’s be clear, “reimagining" is simply a code word that disguises harmful austerity measures.
In 2020, the university hired Huron Consulting to “extensively reimagine” the university.

Their “reimagining” led to the termination of 122 staff members mid-pandemic leaving one administrative staffer houseless. More than a third of the laid-off were union members who played essential roles in student advising, health services, and departmental administration.

In an op-ed for the Nation (🔗 in bio), members of New School AAUP wrote:

“Many in the TNS community were flabbergasted by the decision to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in an external consulting company in the middle of a purported fiscal crisis, rather than mobilizing resources and expertise already present in-house.”

Rather than invest in our community, TNS continually spends large sums of money on outside firms. With little financial transparency, it is difficult to calculate the exact sums, but we can estimate.

In 2022, it’s estimated that The New School paid Akerman LLP, a union-busting law firm, approximately $800 per hour to stall and delay the negotiations of the part-time faculty contract. That’s approximately $45,000 per week over several months.

Recently, TNS announced it would end food stipends for student workers in order to save $45,000.

Are union busting lawyers more important to the university than food for essential employees?

What else can we expect?
• job cuts
• larger class sizes
• reduced access to campus facilities (as with the Making Center)
• aggressive marketing of online asynchronous courses
• increased outsourcing of key university services, including course content

Join the Rally Against Austerity. Tuesday, April 11 at 3pm in the Lang Courtyard

Austerity School events to come.

Until then, read about Huron’s shadowy history 🔗 in bio.

“I taught at Parsons for five semesters including Spring 2020 when we transitioned to online learning.

I was not paid for adapting my class nor given guidance on how to best help students learn about professional photographic lighting via zoom.

I stuck it out teaching remotely through the
Fall but was abruptly let go at the end of the year due to ‘low enrollment numbers’.

My health insurance was cut off shortly thereafter without notice, a very scary experience as I have an inherited cardiac failure condition.”
.......................................

Submit an anonymous testimonial at the link in bio, or go to: bit.ly/teachers_speak