|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Current Events |
|
Groups still support GSOC after 100 days The American Association of University Professors rang in the 101st day of the graduate assistant strike on Friday by sending the NYU administration and Board of Trustees a letter criticizing the university’s dealings with its graduate students. Referencing the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which promotes unionization, the letter is the second to come from the group in as many weeks. “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade union for the protection of his interests,” article 23 of the declaration says. The association’s committee on graduate and professional students also sent a letter to the NYU administration on Feb. 6 in support of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, the bargaining unit for the students’ union, United Auto Workers Local 2110. “Graduate student assistants, like other campus employees, should have the right to organize to bargain collectively,” said Erika Gubrium, a member of the graduate and professional students committee. “Where state legislation permits, administrations should honor a majority request for union representation.” The AAUP’s letter recommends that the NYU administration immediately revoke punishments for striking GAs, hold hearings for teaching assistants who have been denied appointments, promise to follow AAUP procedures for the future and negotiate a legal contract with GSOC. University officials maintain that the consequences for striking GAs are fair. “[With] process issues that the AAUP raised, it is important to note that the university made it clear last semester what consequences GAs would face if they chose to remain on strike this year,” university spokesman Josh Taylor said. “Furthermore, each of the handful of graduate assistants who received a letter saying that he or she appeared not to be teaching contained a request that they make the university aware of any mitigating circumstances, and is directed to internal grievance procedures.” GSOC spokeswoman Susan Valentine said the stipend cuts for striking GAs that began Jan. 23 have continued and 21 GAs have received letters informing them that their stipends have been cut for the spring semester to date. “I think it is in some ways incredibly impressive how long we’ve been on strike, in the face of a strong, powerful union-busting campaign that threatens our education,” Valentine said. On Friday, Graduate Undergraduate Solidarity, an undergraduate student group supporting the strike, and NYU Inc., an alternative news web log, threw a fund-raiser for GSOC in Brooklyn that drew more than 150 graduates and undergraduates and raised several hundred dollars for GSOC, GUS member Annie Rudnick said. GUS has unveiled several new GSOC sticker designs and is currently working with GSOC on visiting with classes to speak and answer questions about the strike, Rudnick said. Members of the Graduate Employee Organization of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst also recently held a fund-raiser for GSOC. |
© 2006. ~Created by the WDG~ |
