NYU Grad Students Say They’re Ready to Strike

[marmar]

[font size="1"]NYU grad students, pictured here rallying last year, say they have enough votes to authorize a strike next week. (Christy Thornton)[/font]


(In These Times) If New York University administrators don’t start answering teaching assistant demands soon, the nation’s second most expensive college could experience a work stoppage as early as next year.

During a rally in Washington Square Park December 2, members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC, affiliated with United Auto Workers Local 2110) announced they were confident that its membership will authorize the union to strike by December 11.

Bargaining committee member Ella Wind, a Middle Eastern Studies student, said that NYU management had not substantively responded to union demands in the past three contract negotiation sessions over the past year. GSOC wants the university to implement an uniform health care coverage plan to teaching assistants—graduate students who teach undergraduate students—rather than differing plans depending on one’s specific school within NYU, Wind explained.

The union is also demanding tuition reimbursement and an improvement for teaching assistant dental benefits. Currently, graduate student instructors can pay into a program, cleverly called the Stu-dent Plan, where they receive dental care from NYU dental students, the union said. Instead, the union wants coverage under the faculty and administrators' dental plan. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17410/nyu_grad_students_strike

[brooklynite]

1. Hmm, they never offered me a Teaching Assistant.

And I taught my last class tonight, so it's a little late.

[JaneyVee]

2. They make the assistants go to student dentists?

This country is crazy with dental coverage, I'm lucky to get it through employer, otherwise you practically have to be a Rothchild to have it. They should strike, NYU is loaded.