Sexton Threatens to Fire Strikers, Strip Us of Stipends, TAships for 3 Semesters

Here we go. Comments appended.

From: NYU President John Sexton (office.president@nyu.edu)
Subject: A Letter to NYU Graduate Assistants

Dear Graduate Assistants,

Your admission to NYU’s graduate programs represents recognition of your
potential to be part of the next generation of intellectual leaders, as men and
women who will fill the ranks of university faculty throughout the world, as
individuals who will lead lives devoted to advanced inquiry. In providing you
with financial aid and the opportunities and responsibilities of assistantships,
we hope to help prepare you for that life.

We recognize that for some of you there is an unfortunate disparity between
the ideal and the reality. In some instances, assistantships have not been
structured to accomplish what we want: to enhance professional development.
There is always a delicate balance between matching undergraduate curricular
needs with the academic and scholarly interests of those who teach; in the case
of GAs, we have not always achieved that balance. While this is not true in
every department, it is true in some.

Our exchanges with one another have been shaped by this reality and the
mistrust engendered by it. We know we must work to bridge the gulf that has
developed, and to align our realities with our ideals.

The recent announcement within Arts and Science limiting assistantship
responsibilities in languages and literature departments to one stand alone
course per semester is a first step. We know we must take others, but these
academic decisions are best determined by schools and departments. The
University will commit resources in support of these efforts. Moving closer to
this ideal, however, will be difficult without restoring an atmosphere of mutual
respect and good faith within the University community.

We appreciate that for some GAs a collectively bargained contract, driven
by a union, provides a greater sense of security; for them the University’s
August decision to move ahead without the union was wrong. For them and others,
the changes to the student health plan and the errors surrounding Blackboard
created doubts about the University’s good will, when both of these issues could
be understood quite differently in an environment of mutual good faith.

For my part, I will not repeat the challenging history that contributed to
the University’s decision to work directly with our graduate students rather
than through the intermediary of a union. Suffice it to say that we accept that,
as we move forward, the burden is on the University to create an environment of
trust as we aim to achieve the ideal. To this end, we propose the following
pathway: for all current and incoming graduate assistants, the University will
offer written contracts based upon their appointment letters. From our
perspective, these commitments already are binding; nonetheless, we will proceed
to document them in a manner that makes clear to all that these contracts
obligate the University and are legally enforceable. These contracts will detail
the terms described last summer, including:
• $1000/year minimum increases in stipends for the 2005-06 academic year
(already enacted), as well as 2006-07 and 2007-08, plus the publication each
April of the next three year’s stipends;
• continued payment by the University of 100 percent of health care
premiums for the comprehensive student health insurance plan; and
• full tuition remission.

But there is more work to be done, and much of it must be driven by
graduate students themselves. Since the beginning of the fall semester, two
groups of graduate students have set to work on matters of importance to
graduate students generally, and graduate assistants in particular. The Graduate
Student Working Group is crafting a rights-and-responsibilities compact that
will provide a basis for defining the relationship between graduate students and
the University. The Working Group is also formulating a permanent grievance
procedure for graduate students to replace the interim procedures presently in
place. Some members of the NYU community have expressed concern about the
fairness of a grievance procedure that ends with the Provost, a University
official. While we must await the Working Group’s proposals, we are open to any
suggestions they may have regarding how members from the academy outside the
University might play a role in this process.

The Graduate Affairs Committee of the Student Senators Council has also
started to address economic and benefit issues affecting graduate students in
general and GAs in particular. Again, we must see what this group proposes; were
it, however, to offer a new mechanism that would enable graduate assistants
elected at the department level to act as representatives of all GAs in annual
discussions of stipend levels, health care benefits, and other matters of
importance, we would embrace that as part of our university governance
procedures. Lastly, I wish to talk about the strike. Many GAs have continued
teaching, others have taught at off-campus locations, and still others have not
been teaching. I believe that those striking have been acting out of conscience.
Though I fervently disagree with their decision not to teach, I do not think
they made this choice lightly. But however strongly felt a graduate assistant’s
act of conscience may be, it should not be pursued any longer at the expense of
undergraduates.

So far, those who have been on strike have been able to act out of
conscience without experiencing consequences for their actions; instead, the
burdens have fallen on departments, faculty, and, in particular, our
undergraduates. Because graduate assistants are also our students, those on
strike have continued to receive their stipends, they have continued to receive
free tuition, and they have continued to receive free health insurance.

Their points have been made and heard. The time has come for the University
to insist that the academic needs of its undergraduates be met. All of us should
share a deep commitment to meeting these needs. Those undergraduates in classes
affected by the strike are understandably anxious about the disruption to their
studies. Such disruption must not continue. I thank those who have been
teaching, and I ask those who have not to return to the classroom.

For those graduate assistants who resume teaching and other assistantship
assignments by Monday, December 5th (or the first class meeting thereafter) at
the assigned times and places, and who fulfill all assigned responsibilities for
the remainder of the semester, including grading, there will be no consequences.
These GAs will be eligible for teaching and other assignments by the department
for the spring semester. This amnesty represents a balance between our respect
for the principled positions of those choosing to strike and our obligation to
undergraduates, who have a right to complete their semester’s work and
experience no disruption in their courses next semester. Because we take both
responsibilities seriously, graduate assistants who do not resume their duties
by December 5 or the first scheduled teaching assignment thereafter – while
experiencing no consequences for this semester – will for the spring semester
lose their stipend and their eligibility to teach.

For those graduate assistants who return by December 5th and accept a
teaching assignment for the spring, this acceptance comes with the commitment to
meet their responsibilities without interruption throughout the spring semester.
Absences not approved by the dean will result in suspension from assistantship
assignments and loss of stipend for the following two consecutive semesters.
Graduating students will be assessed comparably. None of the striking graduate
students will have their ability to continue their own studies affected. In all
cases, their tuition and health benefits will remain in place, and where the
suspension of stipend would create economic hardship, loans will be provided to
students upon their request.

For those who will be satisfied with nothing less than a union, I know it
will be a disappointment that the University will not recognize GSOC/UAW as the
collective bargaining representatives of NYU’s graduate assistants. I
nonetheless hope that we share a goal to make graduate education at NYU better,
even if we differ about the vehicle for achieving this, and that we can come
together around this goal.

This has been a difficult and rancorous semester. While I do not condone
what has been done by those who have been striking, their actions have caused us
to take a hard and unflinching look at ourselves and our practices, and these
self- examinations will lead to significant, enduring improvements. I hope that
in this spirit we can work together to complete the semester and rebuild the
trust we need.

Sincerely,

John Sexton

So that's it. I want to say one thing: WE ARE WINNING. Sexton is sending this email out because he and the NYU administration are scared. They are scared because the end of the semester is coming and they have no one to grade all the undergrads. They are desperate and they are resorting to desperation tactics, which, however much they may scare the shit out of and infuriate me, are ultimately not going to work because we will not let them work. In the face of these threats, we need to stay strong and we need to recognize how much stregnth we have right now and build from it.

See also: NerdsOnStrike

revolutionary slash nutcase

When i finish "November Rain," I'm thinking about moving on to "Wild Side" (Hey babe, take a walk on the strike line,) and, even better, reworking the Tribe Called Quest song which sampled it as "Can I Picket." I like Kweli's shout out to Octavia Butler on the (somewhat odd, but endearing) song about Lauryn Hill.

I'm feeling like I'm being totally ineffective as an organizer, if I can even call myself that right now. Whenever anyone hands me a list to phonebank i get seized by this irrational terror of the phone, and the conversations i have are all tentative and badly organized and generally not productive. Maybe i need to keep practicing. Maybe i need to find someonbe to do some roleplays with me - the problem is, we don't necessarily talk to the same people all the time in our organizing, so roleplaying might wind up being imprecise and less helpful than it is for folks who are talking to the same six people every day or every week. It's possibile that i just generally suck at this, but there have been enough moments in my life where i've felt competent enough at this to be of enough use to somebody's organizing to continue to do it. Part of me would like to see us do more face to face stuff rather than phone-based conversations, as a potential means of countering some of the atomizing aspects of the experience of being a graduate student in New York City. But i'm not sure the same shit wouldn't be holding me back if we did that. Plus, sometimes it's hard to grab a cup of coffee with someone when you're on strike. And we'd still have to phonebank anyway. Anyone have any ideas?

right about seven years ago

The new Kweli "mix" cd is actually quite good. Probably better than Beautiful Struggle, abandoning the Kanye beats for less flashy stuff from DJ Khalil, Pen Skills, Charlemagne, and Jay Dilla. The result is that the rhymes kind of speak for themself, which is generally a good thing. We actually get a Mos Def verse, and it's a good one - no homophobia, no anti-semitism, just "respiration"-style good mos def, for a change. The track with MF Doom is ok, but i got issues with the "it's like having relations without the penetration" line. I also don't think the production is really worthy of either Kweli or MF. It's not so much that it'sbad as that it's not weird enough. I'm going to shut up now, because i clearly have no fucking idea what i'm talking aboot.

2. We need a vacation

Seeing Goblet of Fire for a second time, with my horde o' cousins, my brother Lev, and my cousin Kyla's friend who does American Studies at Brown, made me all the more aware of some of the more glaring sexualized moments which dominate the film's narrative, of which the scene with Myrtle in the bath is only the most glaring and obvious. My favorite du jour is the scene when, having just been rejected by Cho Chang, Harry is lying on his bed clutching/fondling the big golden egg, which here looks like nothing so much as a big shiny phallus. It's awesome.

Thanksgiving was good. I love my horde o' cousins. My 13 year old cousin has apparently hung out with Yo La Tengo. My 17 year old cousin is applying to colleges. My 5 year old cousin has decided that I am crazy and last night she and my three year old cousin (who likes to sing a song about monkeys -- hmmmmm!!!) attempted to "imprison" me beneath a table. My one year old cousin is really enjoying the whole walking thing and makes lots of funny noises. My soon-to-be ten year old cousin has sort of positioned herself as the baby's second mother, which is really cute. Kyla, who's two years older than me, and her sister Jenny, who's Lev's age, are both really cool, and I don't get to see them enough.

Now that family obligations are for the most part over, (i'd like to see Lev again before he flies back to Chicago,) I have all this other shit I want to get done this weekend prior to sunday night phonebanking, but won't. I need to do laundry. That will probaby happen tomorrow morning. I need to start researching some papers. I need to reread chunks of Immigrant Acts. (It's been a while.) I really need to read Eric Zolov's Refried Elvis, which I've decided to present on next week, since I had to choose a book to read and I've been wanting to read it ever since i saw it on K's bookshelf however many years ago. I need to read the Anne Norton book on Straussianism, which I'm told is very odd. And, of course, i also need to figure out how to do this whole organizer thingt again, and how to do it effectively. Maybe i should just kidnap Alek and make him give me some organizing support. Or i guess i could, like, ask Brenda or something. Right, good plan.

My cousin has a blog. It's awesome.

Well, that email we were all expecting from the administration yesterday came as expected. (Although for some reason, i never got it. Maybe this means they're gonna kick me out!)

John Beckman, NYU's spokesperson, has been arguing for weeks that there was no "disruption." Now we have the administration scrambling to find ridiculously insufficient solutions which don't address the real problems at all for a disruption which Beckman will no doubt continue to claim doesn't exist. His words are ringing increasingly hollow. This strike is having a huge effect and everyone knows it. And if Beckman doesn't start changing his tune, he's going to start making Vin "What Strike?" Petrini look good by comparison.

best chant ever

courtesy of Sean

"2,4,6,8:
John Sexton is an asshole.
3,5,7,9:
Where's my fucking contract?"

next time it's wet and rainy and below 40 fahrenheidt,

and i plan on walking in circles for hours, remind me to wear more layers. And buy a new umbrella. That would help.

stakes is high

I really should post a more in depth entry about yesterday, but for now, this will have to suffice. We had some great picketing at Bobst and Silver (and class discussion on Reconstructing Womanhood was fun, although I think Phil gave us a little too much contextualization (no such thing, i know) and maybe we could have engaged Hazel's arguments a little more. A little odd to talk about Michael Denning like 15 minutes after walking a picket line with him, but such is life. Great to see the GESO(/217) folks who came down yesterday, particularly Kristie, who I hadn't seen in a long time (and the last time I saw her she was in strike mode.) And yeah, it's pretty awesome that they brought Michael, who, if you're jumping on this ship late, i took the equivalent of seven classes with in undergrad and have a huge amount of respect and admiration.

Last night's organizing committee meeting was the best we've had since I've been here. NYU is trying to scare us, to weaken us, but we are getting better at this, we're not just holding on -- in some ways, we're getting stronger. So whatever these mystery announcements are tomorrow, without diminishing the many hardships people are dealing with to stay on strike or the pressure they are facing from administrators and anti-union faculty, I'm very confident that we're going to win this fight and that we can stay out until we do.

Harry Potter and the hilariously uncomfortable adolescent sexuality.

I finally saw Goblet of Fire at the Court Street UA theater last night. On the whole, it's pretty excellent. The love hectangle stuff with Harry and Ron and Cedric and Cho Chang and Hermione and Victor Krum is fantastic. Newell and the cast do the post-pubescent sexual angst and occasional Ron-Harry (and Harry-"Moody", and Harry-Cedric) homoeroticism ("don't get your wand tied in a knot") extraordinarily well. I disagree with Evan on the ending, which didn't feel nearly uncomfortable enough to me, given the tone of the book and the film's allusions to September 11th and the politics and sentiments of catastrophe, although neither of the people with whom I saw the film agreed that these allusions were there (at least in Goblet. They're pretty hard to ignore in Phoenix and Prince.) This film actually scared me. The scenes in the water during the second trial, and in the maze, and at the graveyard were horrific. The guy who plays Neville was terrific.

Yesterday, a police officer told me that ours was the best picket line he'd ever seen.

I think it was because of Maris and the trumpet, but how awesome is that?
***
Yeah, um, so why is this in the frigging NYT?

freezin for a reason

In which i steal another Yale chant for application to the NYU struggle, and it is met with cautious indifference. people did chant it for a while though.

We started the day off at 8 in the morning with a ridiculous game of "duck duck unionbuster." The last time i played duck duck goose was in high school gym class, after the teacher had pretty much given up on the possibility of getting me or my high school girlfriend or any of our friends to do anything athletic. That was ironic, this was more of a desperate attempt to stay warm. We followed it (and the hokey pokey and red light, green light,) with a wonderfully postmodern picket line which wound to and fro seemingly at random, following no teleology whatsoever, and included random zigs and zags and hopping and jumping and crouching and all kinds of interesting interactions with sidewalk curbs and white traffic lines. The UMass GEO folks came down and brought us these awesome hats which say "UNION SI" on them. I'm wearing mine under my black wool hat, and i look like a total hipster. We chanted, we sang, we stopped having feeling in our feet. Still nowhere near as cold as, say, day one of the March 2003 strike, but this could get pretty brutal. Given the cold, the picket line was pretty fantastic, and folks from Rutgers, CUNY, Columbia, and GESO came down. Among the four Yale political scientists who came down (plus an American studiesist) was JPM, a friend from undergrad whom it was good to see. Maris dropped a new trumpet hook - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' "Won't Back Down," but the GSOC chant someone will no doubt quote excessively when they write a book/article about this whole thing is the one which seems to be the unquestioned favorite of just about everybody, the "1. We are the union 2.We need a contract 3. A little bit louder: WE ARE GSOC!" chant, with which my own love affair has yet to end.

This weekend will consist of Hazel Carby's Reconstructing Womanhood (finished chapter 1 yesterday, and it's really good, which is unsurprising) and hopefully Mike Newell's Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire.

(a strike update)

more on that later.

For folks reading this in exotic locales like Denver or SFO or Pittsburgh or wherever, today was an extraordinarily cold day here. So cold the cops let us plug our coffee machine into a street lamp outlet at the Bobst line. So cold i was shivering through three layers of heavy clothing and my thick wool cap. We're talking March 3, 2003 cold. But folks were still out on the line at 8 AM picketing, shouting, leafletting, and we were there at 5, singing along with the labor chorus folks who came to visit us. Undergrads are sending hundreds of strike-related postcards home to parents. Faculty members stood, shivered, and marched with us, and a guy from GSEU and a bunch of CUNY folks braved the cold wind to walk the line in solidarity with us.

The administration is intensifying its effotrs to buy some of us off and force others back to work through threats and intimidation tactics. Now is not the time to go into details- i'll do that later, when and if the details become matters of public record. So much is at stake here. We can not let them break this union. We cannot let them single us out. We cannot let them force us to return to work without negotiating with our union.

I'm frustrated with academic stuff. The departmental chaos, rumors of faculty departures, failed classes, etc. By forcing this strike, NYU may dash its hopes of ever joining the ranks of the elite institutions to which it aspires and whom it emulates. I'm afraid that NYU's reckless attempts to crush our union are going to have very specific and injurious effects on graduate education - my education. Forcing or driving faculty elsewhere, defunding programs like mine, and either forcibly rejecting or effectively discouraging faculty hires whom i might want to work with are not unrelated. At stake is the attempt by the administration here to consolidate the neoliberal university at all cost. Even if we win the strike, how do we effectively combat this.

Oh. So this evening after picketing i get talked into leafletting some event by one of the union staffers. As we're walking to the subway I ask the local president what the event is, and she tells me that it is the place (a nonprofit legal research center affiliated with NYU) where a friend works. I verbally note this, I'm urged to call said friend and ask if we can possibly get into the benefit at all, i leave a frantic message on her voice mail before we dissappear into the 4 train, but she doesn't get it and we don't connect until we're already leafletting outside. Initially we have a bad relationship with some folks from the center and from the benefit venue. Alec Baldwin walks by, as does Mark Green. It's frigid. Eventually we establish a working relationship with folks from the center when we assure them we're not protesting them, just the NYU trustee who's the honorary chair of the silent auction, and i have some good conversations with some folks from the center, one of whom lives in my neighborhood, and another who previously worked for (Unite-HERE) Local 100. We hand out 200 leaflets, then take off. I wonder how Minnie Driver's doing these days. We go way back.) I leafletted my friend's job. It was totally surreal.

Nerds On Strike have the text of the new letter from the deans to department chairs regarding teaching assistantships, and Specter of Marx offers some trenchant commentary.

I'm feeling a little bummed because i totally forgot about the cohort "happy hour" and came directly home after leafletting. I'll see folks monday i guess, and i'm wiped out and am probably going to do the "wake up at 5:30 and walk to campus" thing tomorrow morning, but i wish i could have put in the time tonight to see folks before thanksgiving break.

On STRIKE. Shut it down. New York is a UNION town.

ask me about the strike, part 3

1 week down.

(The following should be sung to the tune of Guns n' Roses' "Don't Cry" (Original version).

We're chanting loudly, you pretend there's something in your
ear
here we stand before you, just as you feared
you're being called to account yeah, that much is clear
now,
we won't lose this fight

we won't lose this fight
we're on stri-i-ike tonight
there's a picket around you, Stimpy.
we're on strike tonight.

The strike continues into its second week. I'm exhausted (and frustrated about the horrible plumbing in my apartment, which is probably way more than you wanted to know) but i also feel like, while we, and especially I, have a lot of work to do, that there have been a lot of things to celebrate about the strike in the last week - fantastic media coverage, great support from undergrads and faculty and from eachers and researchers and other workers at other universities, and some very clear indications of the kind of chaos which is taking place amongst administrators at the highest level who are in a mad dash to attempt to find some cover from the Blackboard fallout. I've heard some scary things about administrative plans today which I hope are not true. I've also seen vibrant and powerful picket lines encircling the Silver center and rocking the library. Nelson Lichtenstein walked our picket line. So did John Wilhelm. So, for that matter, did Emilio Hernandez, Shirley Lawrence, and Pat Carta, to name a few. The GSOC strikers greeted the FHUE folks when they marched in from their Dattco bus with "2,4,6,8, who do we appreciate, GESO," which I didn't engage in, because they all know that i appreciate them at this point, plus, Julie would also have ridiculed me for the rest of my life. When everyody left people started chanting "thank you Yale." I guess Federation of Hospital and University Employees doesn't really make for a good picket line chant. I'm hesitant, however to thank Yale as an institution for much other than, as Bob Proto once said, "doing our organizing for us." I did, however complete a verse of "Oh GESO," to the tune of John Lennon's "Oh Yoko," which i would like to share with you now. I should add as a prefatory note that while i am attempting to comply with Alek's unspoken edict that i not mangle good songs, and am instead currently confining myself to the Cheap Trick/GNR/Bon Jovi/Journey quartet for my most recent compositions, I believe that Lennon's work isn't really manglable, that no matter how badly i rip it off it possesses enough signifying and symbolic power at this point that anything i do will be inconsequential. Thus,

In the middle of a strike
In the middle of a strike for which Yale's to blame
(alternativley, "in the middle of a strike, you call my name.)
oh GESO
oh GESO
let's trample Levin's lawn.

Last line lame, i know. Let me know if you have better ones. Like i hinted in my op-ed, the folks in GESO and they work they have done has been formative in how i think about the academic work that i do, not to mention the organizing. I get a very powerful, visceral sense of how what I'm doing here is connected to what i've been doing for most of the last five years of my life when they show up in the UNITE-HERE! shirts and swell our picket lines. Seeing and talking with folks from the federation on what's thus far been a weekly basis helps me to articulate for myself the stakes and dynamics of this struggle at NYU in ways i find deeply rewarding and important. They're very, very good at this. (Which isn't to say that there aren't folks here who aren't or make a value judgement, which would be ridiculous and unproductive. There are things we can help each other out with -- GESO have 15 years of organizing and research experience they're sharing with us. Maybe we have some resources we can share with them...) Having folks from other schools around helps us see the breadth and depth of this movement and reminds us how important it is that we win here.

A year and a half ago, Wendi told me in no uncertain terms that i had to go to grad school somewhere where i'd have to organize. Check. Three months ago, Jeffrey told me I had to organize. Check. Well, i'm working on it, anyway. The different organizing culture's a little disorienting, and when all's said and done, I'm not half the organizer that Julie is, or Lauren is, or Thomas is, or a one hundredth of the organizer Abbey is. I'm just kind of dogged and very angry, and i don't always feel like i'm being particularly useful here in any role other than that of cheerleader, which i am ok with. Really though, what i guess i need to do is step up.

Lots of folks told me today that they've been reading this blog. This is awesome. (Indeed, Jeffrey's proclamation that I have to organize has become one of frequent updates to this website.) Welcome to folks from NYU, Yale, and elsewhere. post a comment sometime.

The GSOC folks love GESO too. Especially Maris. Everybody loves Maris.

And I'll end with a cliche, and promise more later, which i tend to do rather frequently.

Oh. While i'm blogging about things and people in a city i haven't lived in since June 1, 2004, somebody told me there were 35 undergrads at the board of aldermen hearing last night. Or whenever it was. Not too shabby.

"UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICE=/WEAPON OF MATH DESTRUCTION"
-sign held by Math/Computer Science folks today. Eventually de- got changes to in- because each element of the sentence was on opposite sides of a picket sign. Alright, i'nm losing the ability to think coherently. Good night.

Dean Catherine "Stimpy" Stimpson asked to shake my hand while Liz and I were leafletting at the south entrance to the Silver building today. I don't like shaking hands with administrators unless i feel like it will push them to do something useful, and i was loathe to shake Stimpson's hand because, well, threatening and insulting emails don't exactly inspire congenial responss on my part. She expressed dismay and then walked away. I guess she didn't like being "called to account" very much.

sectarian communist blues

(thanks Thomas.)

The ISO are really pissing me off. They've been trying to hijack some meetings in ways which are not only infuriatingly obvious, obstructive, and counterproductive, but may actually be hurting our organizing with specific individuals in departments in which we are not as strong as we need to be. The shit they keep bringin up over and over again isn't even important stuff. it's not going to win this strike. It may not even help us win this strike. Today one ISO guy told me that the undergrad solidarity group (and he isn't even an undergrad) was "more militant" than us because they wanted to hand out a stupid, badly written leaflet telling prospectve students not to come here and all we grad students are doing is, uh, putting ourselves on the line, organzining like hell, and going on strike. Oh, wait. Thankfully, whatever drama there's been, we're still winning, because people are working their asses off to make that happen. But why can't they just do what the Yale ISO folks did - call us the "old guard" (damn you, "Alex Felstiner") and then disappear for months at a time? Seriously.

The undergrads - the actual undergrads, have been fantastic. And this is coming out of a place of frustration and exhaustion. I'll take it dwon if someone tells me to.

Felstiner, as i proved today after class in which i stormed out on my cohort after someone made a crack about the union which pissed me off, i am the biggest spaz ever. I make Rick Levin look well adjusted. This was almost as bad as the time i spazzed out on Erin when she was facilitating that UOC meeting and was talking about subcommittees and i like got up and left the rrom and people had to physically restrain me to keep me from leaving. I suck so much. My favorite hotel chants: 'Don't check in, check out,' and 'Arriba, abajo, el congress esta carajo." Or however you spell that. It's probably got real problematic gender politics.

A blow by blow of the latest sexton letter and more on the strike to come later, when i am less exhausted. The AP is reporting that Vine Deloria has died. This is a loss.

i got no nothing in mind.

Thanks for the link to NYUinc. Check 'em out if you haven't already.

Highlights of the day:
1. Actually finishing a freaking book. (Omi and Winant's Racial Formations, which is in places rather unstrategically essentialist and assumes all sorts of very problematic things about unitary racial subjects and what "race" is and how racialized groups ought to organize. The "racial formations" chapter itself is useful. The rest of the book is full of all sorts of very problematic statements. I'm particularly apalled at their response to "internal colonialism" perspectives, in which they argue simplistically and without any explanation or exegesis that colonial projects did not have any substantial effect on domestic racial projects. (Barbarian Virtues? Hello?)
2.Finding a copy of the out of print Blackwell CLR James Reader at the used book table in front of Bobst. Who wants to touch me?

whoa

Specter of Marx posted this Gary He WSN pic of the Bobst line from wednesday on the Soc. "Nerds for GSOC" blog because sociology prof Jeff Goodwin is in it. (He's the guy who looks like Holtz from season 3 of Angel.) But check out who's behind him...

Not sure whose hand that is on my arm. Also worth noting is the dude at the bottom next to the cop with the "I heart my unionized TA sign." He's a undergrad who had this pin which combined a star of david with an anarchy symbol. He said he got it at orthodoxanarchist.com.

I picked up the new Soul Jazz Studio One - Women comp at Kim's yesterday. It's got some amazing stuff i've never heard before - like Della Humphrey's sublime "Dreamland" and Jennifer Lara's "Consider Me."

Ben-no Schmidt! Ben-no Schmidt!

Excerpt from the faculty letter to Sexton regarding Blackboardgate and electronic surveillance, signed by 204 members of the NYU faculty.

We consider this seizing of access to the communication
between professors and their registered students to be an intensely unethical
act, one that is in the deepest violation of academic freedom. At our meeting
with you on Tuesday, you tried to assure us that your primary identity at the
university was as a proud member of the faculty, but it is hard for us to
believe that anyone committed to faculty rights and governance, and academic
freedom (especially in the arena of classroom pedagogy) would countenance
practices of this sort. These are acts of invasive intimidation. You suggested
at our the same meeting that your opposition to the unionization of graduate
students at NYU was a measure of your principled devotion to the sanctity of the
academic process, and yet the university's effort to resist that unionization
have now evidently compromised the most basic principles defending that process.
You also suggested that the various parties in this struggle no doubt were not
acting from mendacity, but for outsiders to secretly listen in on the
communications of a class is mendacious in the extreme.

The principle of safe space – in terms of a classroom
ethic of mutual respect, in terms of specific anti-harassment rules, and in
terms of instructors’ duty to seek consent before sharing any privileged
communications or materials – is a principle that we all work painstakingly to
establish in our classrooms. Indeed, it is fundamental to establishing the basis
for a functioning class.

Opening of Blackboard lists to administrative surveillance compromises
principles of free conversation and exchange perennially enjoyed not only by
faculty, but undergraduate students as well.

Nothing so confirms that academic workers at this university need
protection and representation of their own choosing (such as the protection
afforded to graduate students by a union) as this single egregious act, which
goes against the foundational principles of higher education as well as those of
a democratic and open society.

We spoke to you in our Tuesday meeting of the deep wounds that the
administration's refusal to negotiate is causing the university. Now we must add
the outrage we feel at this terrible and shameful act of misconduct. Faculty
trust in the administration’s good faith has been irreparably damaged, and we
have little confidence in the university administration’s ability to lead us out
of this crisis. We urge a rapid effort to resolve this dispute with the graduate
students before matters pass the point of no return in the university as a
whole.

We're Not Gonna Take It Anymore

Zwichenzug at The Bellman, who's been up here working on our strike for the last few days, proving that the contingent academic labor movement is both exhilarating large and comfortably small, or at least, linked together in very interesting and rich ways, posts a critique of/response to my critique of corporatization discourse, questioning how useful it is as a public message in the context of organizing. My point, however, is that when talking about universities being "corporate," we need to do so in ways which illuminate the intricacies of the global predicaments of university endowments and public funding (whether that means talking about Farallon or talking about, in very specific and focused ways, Iraq and the politics of military funding and infinite detention,) that complicate the definition and historiography of the corporate university and that seek to confront universities as engines, rather than just passive sites of neoliberal globalization. I think calling universities "corporate" doesn't begin to describe the problem and also doesn't offer useful suggestions as to where we should focus our organizing, necessarily. But enough about this.

My bathroom is fixed. This makes me thrilled.

Saw Manuel again today on the Silver south picket, which was a fantastic line - enthusiastic picketers being really loud, having lots of fun, and getting several delivery trucks, union and non-union, to not cross our line and not deliver to the university. We sang a lot, a trend which started with Maris whipping out the trumpet and blasting some Twisted Sister while perplexed folks from English and Math, hesitant at first, started singing along with Brenda and me and a couple Rutgers undegrads who had come with their unionized adjunct professor to support us, and were totally awesome. The singing expanded into the first two verses of "Solidarity Forever," culminating with the Federation stalwart "We Want a Contract (Hey Hey Hey, Right Now)," which Scott Marks is much better at than I (or anyone else, for that matter,) but which is random and annoying enough to be shockingly affective even when I'm the one leading it. And in general, I tend to think singing on picket lines is a really good thing to do. The new chant everyone is crazy about is "1. We are the Union, 2.We need a contract, 3.A little bit louder, WE ARE GSOC," which people have grabbed onto in part because of the powerful constitutive argement it makes about what a union is and why we're putting ourselves on the line to fight for ours. Another high point for me was when Brenda pulled us all together and introduced the GESO stalwart of "x department, on strike," which i pulled out yesterday, but which was much more powerful coming from Brenda than from me. We also did "we are the union" and even "we're freezin or a reason" for a little bit, which made me happy, because it's a great chant and because it reminds me of the day I first heard it, March 6, 2003, on the YNHH Dietary picket when workers started doing the electric slide in the falling snow just before we headed up to college street to prepare for the Education in The Streets action. Pulling all the separate pickets back together, and then forming a huge picket outside bobst for the end of the shift was exciting and empowering and fun.

Not gonna talk about the membership meeting here, except to say that the first half was awesome and i think some people in the second half said some really powerful things. Afterwards i went out with one of the staff organizers to talk to some Art school GAs and had some really good conversations in a very strange setting, and then afterwards ran into a guy in my department who i had a very interesting conversation with about the strike and the department and tactics and privilege. So, long day, but good one. Taking tomorrow off from union stuff hopefully to just sit somewhere and read Omi and Winant for class on Monday. I'm feeling like organizing is something that i'm really enjoying again and that excites me. Like Dan's sign said on Wednesday, "We Are Winning."

On the first day of the strike, NYU administrators added themselves to every class on the electronic Billboard server. They did this as a way to monitor how, where, and if classes were being taught during the strike, to, in essence, spy on faculty and instructors - and, in the languages, the TAs who teach their own classes like one woman from the French department I was talking to yesterday afternoon while we made a couple hundred yellow armbands. This hi-technology tool for distributing assignments and communicationg with students, in the eyes of the deans, is a means for surveiling and policing the interactions between teachers and students. Whether or not Beckman is telling the truth, that this was only intended for courses taught by us, is inconsequential. The administration has been trying to spy on our relationships with our students and use the information they find against all of us as grist for the disciplinary mill. The faculty are furious. So am I.

forgot to post a link

so here. Unite here, even. I'll be a little late to the lines today due to an unfortunate and gross plumbing problem in my apartment, but I'll be there.

ask me about the strike, part 2

Title comes from the t-shirt. Shout out to Amelia and Lauren in Phx and New Haven, respectively, for all of the spray painting back in the day.

Yesterday was fantastic. The picket lines were strong and fiercely optimistic (case in point Dan G. from GESO's sign and the amazing "Give up now/We will win" one Ezra from History was holding). I saw folks whom I hadn't seen in months, and I saw folks i see every week standing up for themselves, their work, and the future of the university to an extent that has never before happened here . I saw GESO alum NYU profs join NYU undergrads (and Phoebe,) guerilla brass bands rock raucous pickets of mathematicians and physicists and comp literati and medievalist historians and computer scientists and small manhattan canine pets of AmStud ethnographers and a large fraction of the Yale American Studies and history departments and the woman who swiped my id card at my residential college dining hall for the two years i lived on the Yale campus. The undergrads did a banner drop and gave us cookies (today it was hot chocolate and hershey's kisses) and everyone held amazing, eclectic, colorful picket signs and shouted stuff like "NYU, NYU, why do we have a W2?" and (my personal favorite) "If we're not workers/then we're not not working." I stayed out all day and didn't eat anything substantial until late in the evening after resting a very aching neck and back.

Today was freezin'. For a reason. We split up the picket lines strategically and hit many of the major class buildings on campusand taught eachother new chants. GSOC likes "on strike, shut em down, new york is a union town," but is not too into "we're not gonna take it" or "we want a contract," which makes sense, since those are two chants which have very specific histories and meanings for folks in New Haven that don't translate. (The intensity of the 2003 strikes, Maris's trumpet, Scott Marks's booming voice over the federation's portable sound system, etc.) And, as i noted above, this struggle, linked to the one in New Haven by far more than just me, BC, AS, MZ, SW, or JL, has its own iconographies and idioms which are often very powerful. I gotta say though, that with the notable exception of that one from the Reclaim Our Campus action where we counted to like 25 (does anyone have that written down?) i'm not generally a fan of "2, 4, 6, 8" chants unless they're really good, which "NYU negotiate" isn't. We could be doing way more with those four syllables, like "the cold is making me irate." A la Justin Ruben's incredible "sit down and negotiate" chant from right before Sweeney spoke on the Wednesday of the March strike. The rat eats gasoline. And you have to take it down when it gets windy or else it will fly away and tragically impale itself on the horn rimmed glasses of the denim clad supercilious hipster who wouldn't take a leaflet yesterday morning. I did try to bust out the "x department, ON STRIKE" chant, which people liked for its general absurdity a la "performance studies: ON STRIKE! Comp Lit: ON STRIKE." We were all interviewed by squadrons of wide-eyed journalism students sent to interrogate us by their professors, who i believe were holding class on campus. Yay to the J-students writing about the strike, boo to the not moving classes off campus. People were holding them in the frigging Washington Square park fountain yesterday, which is totally awesome. I was cold but exhilarated. A lot of my faculty were out on the line yesterday and today, and other grad students in the department i didn't know too well before yesterday, I now know far better.

My op-ed finally got published. The YDN called me way late last night after i'd been up for 18 hours and was totally exhausted and i pretty much just took their edits as they'd made them and added one of my own i'd forgotten about before i sent in the piece. If i'd had more space, i would have made more explicit the connections between GSOC and GESO and GSEU and GET-UP and GEO et al. I would have made the account more specific to Yale and what GESO and the rest of the federation had taught me, but I think that comes across a little bit anyway. And i talk about the Yale fight way too much down here already. So i want to spend the end of this entry, discombobulated and disjointed as my current level of fatigue has made it, by noting how fantastic the organizing going into this strike has been thus far, on the whole, and how thrilled i am at what we're achieving every day on the streets. More when i'm less tired. Which should roll around sometime in july.

on strike

Blogging may be a bit sparse for a bit - I'll be out picketing all day tomorrow and then i have my scheduled picketing shift thursday morning, all of which is a lot of "hey hey hey right now"s. Music student with Sideshow Bob hair says he's bringing lots of musical instruments to the picket line. Too nervous/angry/excited to put together coherent thoughts at the moment. Whether or not we end this strike with a settlement, we are fighting to reshape the divisions of labor in the neoliberal university and its role in global networks of capital accumulation, and that's something worth striking a hundred times over to do. And if I'm not being clear, i want to state once more that I very much think we are going to win this fight. When this'll happen, I don't quite know. But i'm ok with that. So you can catch me at the picket line at 8 AM wearing a ridiculous picket sign and screaming my lungs out.

Oh, and happy birthday, Saqib Bhatti.

some thoughts on academic capitalism.

I have a bone to pick with the academic labor movement's discourse. Specifically, i'm a little perturbed by the discourse of corporatization as applied to the contemporary situation of universities in the global North, like NYU.

See, here's my beef: The corporatization of the university is a process which, I want to argue, is something that we should be talking about in the past tense to some extent, a process which we need to situate in between the late 1940s and mid to late 1960s as the moment at which the growth and importance of the corporation in the post WWII world and the GI Bill university become incredibly important in the logics of cold war mobilization, ergonomically inclined industrial psychology projects in the university seek to rationalize the homo economicus necessary for the kinds of work discipline demanded by the jobscape of the American Century's postwar boom, and the university-corporate nexus forms the site of the emergence and generation of the various models of international economic and socio-cultural development projects. Corporations acquire campuses and dub themselves think tanks, unversities streamline, Taylorize, and speed up. If my periodization is off, it is because i may be marking the emergence of some of these trends as far later than they actually are. So i should clarify by noting that i think there's a specific iteration of industrial psychology that emerges in these years, or perhaps the old strain, which dates back to the 1920s and has far earlier roots in the scientific management community, is vested with new attention or authority.

We also need to look at the politics of the relationships between institutions like universities and the spatial politics and built environment of the cities they occupy. See, for instance, Columbia's gymnasium project in Morningside Park, or the anger that erupts in the early 1970s over Yale's sometimes stealthy expansion in the previous two decades.

By the late 1960s, and particularly 1967-68, when there is across the globe a revolt against this corporate multiversity and its strong links to the Vietnam War and the policing of social movements, I want to argue that this corporatization comes into a state of crisis and the beginnings of something new start to emerge and attempt to replicate and replace it. In Yale's case, between 1968-1973, when the dollar is yanked free from the gold standard forever, the oil crisis erupts, and Local 35 is beaten bloody on college street outside the annual commencement ceremony while Hannah Arendt recieves an honorary doctorate, crucial shifts inaugurate the social relations of the deindustrializing city and its neocolonial relationship with the university. I tried to argue in my senior essay that there is a powerful link between this process and the fashioning of Richard Levin's enumerated global university, that this is when the neoliberalization of the univeristy begins in earnest, a process not merely about turning the university into a corporation, but about colonizing new realms of knowledge, about, particularly in the wake of the bayh-Dole act (1980) refashioning the university as a neoliberal instrument global inequality in the name of a politics of scarcity. At Yale, i was fortunate enough to be around the loudest evangelist for this new(er) reconsitiution of the university as a site of knowledge production in relation to the coloniality of power and knowledge, and also to get to work with and learn from federation folks doing innovative and awesome research on how this process worked -- whre the money went, how the board of trustees that controlled it functioned, and the crucially important place of international student workers in this new economy of the university.

I don't know enough yet about NYU's own history, but i suspect it is not different enough not to warrant a somewhat similar reperiodization. Ours is a movement against neoliberalism. Knowing this and being able to articulate it greatly enriches the possibilities for how we understand our struggle in a global context.

[acknowledgements to the researchers and organizers working on the Yale fight and to the GSOC people organzing for the strike, from whom i draw a great deal here.]

quote of the week

"Zachary, you're 24-8-- 47." - J Consuela Gonzales.

you hearin this cause somebody pushed play for you

weekend playlist, fuck punctuation edition:
Guided By Voices: Game of Pricks
Art Blakey & Jazz Messengers: Moanin'
Oliver Nelson: Stolen Moments
The Spinners: I'll be Around
The Wowz: Drivin' To Hawaii
Johnny Cash: One Piece at a Time
The Raincoats: Fairytale In The Supermarket
The Cure or Dinosaur Jr., whichever works: Just Like Heaven/Levin
Go-Betweens: To Reach Me
Dizzy Gilespie - Groovin' High
Wu-Tang - Protect ya neck
Coup - Lazymuthafucka

I spent pretty much the entire weekend finding space, making signs, or being uncomfortably useless in the union office and talking way too much. But enough about that.

I miss Phife Dawg. I just wanted to get that out on the table. "Did not you know that my style's the top dollar/the five foot assassin knockin' fleas off of his collar"

What's with the cover image on Pet Sounds? Dude, you put photos of goats fondling you on the cover of your album and then wonder why Charles Manson is your biggest fan?

This is the third time i've found myself in a position of consciously gearing up for a strike where i've been involved enough in some aspect of the organizing in one way or another to feel very directly affected. This one feels a lot more nebulous than the last two. Partially that's because i'm in the bargaining unit. Partially it's because i've only been here for two months. Partially it's because New York is atomizing and grad school is atomizing and I'm all atomy. And no matter how much organizing i do here I can't really make up for walking out on the boycott campaign last year so i could sit around in my parents' apartment and be depressed for five more months. And this is an indefinite strike. And the folks i relied on to not go all crazy during the summer of 2003 are all hundreds or thousands of miles away. And so is Rev. Scott and it really isn't the same when I'm the one saying "Mountain, Move out of My Way." That said, we can win this, because there's a strong core of GSOC folks who are dedicated and intense enough to make sure that what needs to get done gets done. There's a lot that needs to get done, but, as i've said before on this blog, the support we're recieving from faculty is like nothing i've ever seen before. The undergrads have been great too, although that i have seen before, because, well, that was me. But I never saw this in any Yale paper when i was in New Haven.

Support is awesome. I find the level of support at NYU staggering. But support is not, is never enough. I think the question we need to ask, and it's a question folks here are already asking, is: how do we build a broader and stronger academic labor movement here, together with the adjuncts, the under grads, the tenured faculty, the clerical workers, the custodial workers, and everyone else on this campus and in this city? How do we place our struggle in Greenwich Village in global context? How can we start talking about casualization, about the transformations in the post-Bayh-Dole university, about the work that our work does? This is a question we're going to have to ask ourselves during and after the strike, no matter the outcome.

quick strike links

Faculty Democracy has a blog. We have a "Faculty Democracy." How cool is that?

And one TA in French posts thoughts on the Stimpy letter here.

I take back between 50-90% of all the bad things i have ever said about Robert Christgau. "The Dean" is moving his class off campus.

"we're in it for the longue duree"

I've spent most of the last three days in the union office, trying to get classes moved, making picket signs like "We are NOT DOCILE BODIES/Foucauldians on Strike", or venturing out into the department i've been organizing in to try to get folks to commit to come out to picket, which has been a mixed bag. People are afraid of repercussions, and their fears are reinforced by documents like this, linked to on NYU's frontpage, which encourages undergrads to report on striking TAs, makes more vague threats of "repercussions," and subtly reinforces the fear many international students have of losing their visas (scroll down.)

What's enraging about this "FAQ" to me (they use scare quotes, so can I!) is that it's clearly intended as and only as a tool of intimidation. If NYU actually deports or disciplines anyone, I will be shocked. That's not what these missives are about - they're flooding our inboxes with this stuff to scare us off the picket line, which is why that's exactly where all of us need to be come Wednesday.

A couple updates of interest: "Walmart U," NYU AMST prof Lisa Duggan's post on the strike at Drum Major Institute Blog, Physicist Alan Sokal's thoughts on the matter. What did i miss?

More warm and cuddly intimidation from the NYU Provost's office

Dear NYU Student,

The United Auto Workers union has announced that it has decided to proceed with
a “strike.” I want to reassure you that classes will continue to go forward
and we will do our best to minimize the impact of any disruption the UAW may
cause.

As you know, the University entered into a contract with the UAW in 2001, the
first and only private university to do so. We had choices, but we
decided to enter into a contract because the union committed – in writing –
not to interfere with NYU’s academic decision-making. Regrettably,
they broke that promise. In so doing, they damaged a genuine
opportunity for partnership. Remarks from the union leadership, as recently
as this past week, establish that they continue to believe that grievances
of academic decisions, including who should be appointed to teach, are
appropriate.

Still, in August we proposed a new agreement: recognition
of the UAW as the bargaining agent for our graduate students on economic
matters (stipends, health care, employment conditions), but not academic
matters. We made this proposal to bridge the goals important to the
University and the UAW. The union unambiguously rejected the proposal.

We have tried to find a way to make it work with the UAW, twice.
At some point, one must turn from trying to mend an imperfect past and
towards creating a better future.

So, we have implemented increases in stipends ($1000 per year for three years),
and a commitment to an “evergreen” look ahead to enable graduate students to
know the financial aid support three years in advance. A committee of graduate
student representatives has begun work on a new grievance procedure and a
rights-and-responsibility compact.

The UAW is now threatening to disrupt classes. In moving forward after the UAW
rejected our proposal, the University was aware that the UAW might threaten
class disruptions. You are entitled to ask “Is this worth it?” The answer
to that question lies not in whether the autoworkers union chooses to
disrupt classes, but in whether the University’s decision advances or erodes
NYU’s long-term efforts to achieve academic excellence. Along with
many others on campus, I believe it will advance them.

NYU values the freedom to express differences of opinion. In an academic
environment, however, disrupting classes is not an appropriate form of
expression. An academic institution and its faculty must be committed
to classes going forward, to teaching and learning continuing, and to
supporting all its students – including its graduate assistants – as they
pursue their education. In a community of scholars, this is our
vocation, and it is the right course. Despite what may happen over the
coming days, we cherish all of our students. We will remain committed
to them, to their studies, and to their scholarly aspirations, and to your
academic progress.

Sincerely,
David McLaughlin, Provost

I don't feel, and I am sure this will come as a surprise, particularly cherished upon reading these words. Indeed I find them both chilling and frustrating. The claim that NYU values differences of opinion becomes ludicrous given the extraordinarily deceptive, biased, and baldfaced lies through which his provostitudinousness structures his narrative of betrayal and "disruption." Provost Mclaughlin, please listen to me:
We, NYU's PhD students, members of GSOC, (and yes, that's the UAW, you elitist jerk,) are the ones fighting to build a better future. We are the future of the university. And all you need to do to avert the necessity of this strike is start negotitating in good faith instead of resorting to lies and threats. Had NYU spent less of the last month trying every which way it could to intimidate and harass us and instead actually negotiated with the union the vast majority of students and faculty have always supported, we could have had a contract by now. Instead, you can bet I'll be spending cold mornings on picket lines rewriting songs about you. (expecta trecentos hendecasyllabicos!)

The Rockettes' musicians are striking, and apparently so are the Rockettes. Maybe we could visit each others' picket lines or something.

iTunes essentials has a list of "Indie Rock Love Songs" which they promise are not about "anger or boredom." Sounds like a cute idea, right? Except that a bunch of the songs they list -- The Pixies' "Gigantic," Sleater-Kinney's "Modern Girl," Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart Again," are about nothing so much as anger, boredom , and alienated, ironic, dissafectation. Not exactly John Cusack-holding boom box-under-window material. Shit, "Modern Girl" doesn't even remotely pretend to be a love song.

This blog is not a union blog. The opinions herein do not represent those of any union, not the least GSOC, of which i am a member. GSOC cares about things like the future of the academy and winning just contracts, whereas i write about things like baby pandas and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So please don't interpret any of these rants as anything other than what they are. Thanks.

Um. Yeah.

Just in time for the strike

Look who's ready for picketing!

Funny story. I'm walking around the village looking for off-campus locations to which to move classes with Maris. We see the headquarters of a certain business magazine owned by a certain former presidential candidate. Rhymes with "orbs." As we are walking out, having talked with the security guard about the possibility of hosting strike classes at said corporate offices, we see the display in the entryway which is an advertisement for said magazine and concludes with the slogan: "CAPITALIST TOOL." I started cracking up.

Oh, by the way, we're going on strike in eight days. Eight frigging days. And yes, this is a staff editorial.