By Ryan McNamara
The kerfuffle between the Graduate Student Organizing Committee and NYU administration has been going on for over a year, and still GSOC has no contract. NYU Local has covered various updates of the situation in-depth, and on Friday, GSOC will decide a strike date. But what exactly is GSOC? For those just tuning in on the issue, here’s a brief explainer.
GSOC is the union representing graduate student workers at NYU. In 2001, they became the first grad workers union to negotiate a contract with a private university in the United States.
The union was able to secure a contract for graduate student workers up until 2005. Under the original contract, grad students working as teaching assistants, lab assistants, office assistants and other positions were paid more and had improved health insurance coverage.
But in 2005, NYU did not renew contract negotiations, citing a Bush-era National Labor Relations Board ruling that stated graduate employees are students without the bargaining rights of workers. They have gone without a contract since.
GSOC formed in part as a response to trends in higher education that see schools increasingly rely on graduate students for teaching. Today, the majority of all classes at NYU are taught by part-time instructors, many of which are graduate students.
Throughout the last decade, GSOC has been active to varying degrees. In December 2013, graduate students voted 98 percent (620 to 10) in favor of GSOC representing them as their union. After this vote, NYU’s administration recognized the union again and the contract bargaining process began.
That was over a year ago, and today the two sides have yet to reached an agreement.
The union’s current demands include better compensation, improvements to health care, and expanded family benefits like childcare and family leave.
At the end of last semester, GSOC help a strike authorization vote. Ninety-five percent of the members who voted said yes to authorizing a strike if necessary. Over 1,100 GSOC members participated in the vote.
A GSOC strike is not without precedent. In November 2005, the union went on strike for the entire spring semester. The details of the strike are the subject of a book, “The University Against Itself,” written by GSOC members and sympathetic faculty at NYU. History professor Mary Nolan and sociology professors Andrew Ross and Jeff Goodwin contributed to the book, amongst others.
