For those who are undergraduates this fall, no matter their major, NYU is
providing an education in cynicism. For behind administrators' threats is this
clear message: All that Shakespeare and Plato and philosophy and democracy you
read about in class is not serious. That's just for inside the classroom. In the
real world, the administration believes in the law of the jungle and might makes
right.Union busting is a sleazy practice in any industry. But in a university,
it takes a further toll. It undermines the very integrity of intellectual life
that draws people to academia in the first place. There is still time for NYU to
reverse course and do the right thing. It is for all of us - particularly New
York taxpayers who subsidize the tax-exempt university - to insist that it do
so.
Picket good today. Cold. Very very cold. Some jerks stole all our hot chocolate. Colder. I bought some more hot chocolate for folks as my mitzvah for the day.
Made up some new chants to Salt n Pepa songs:
Let's talk about John Sexton
Let's talk about him and me
Let's talk about all the contracts and bargaining that could be
Let's talk about strikes.
Let's talk about strikes.
and
If I'm standing on the line
holding picket signs,
give me a contract
And if we
wanna be freakin' & picket on the weekend
give us a contract
So don't you
ever even get into
where i'm goin' into
just give me a contract!
At the end of the day we got a tip that Sexton was going to be present at a lecture in the silver center to intorduce the speaker. We showed up outside the big glass window, Yale Boathouse style, and got crazy with the chanting. I have no voice left and i got myself so sick that my nose started randomly bleeding in the middle of Syriana.
The pictures from last friday's action with the folks from across the labor movement are up at the GSOC strike center page. My favorites include this one, of Josh organizing an NYU undergrad i don't know
this one, of Asad, the Rat, and the back of Carlos's head,
this one, because there are some very funny facial expressions being worn by GSOC historians in the crowd, 
and this one, because i love the whole genre of mouth-agape, mid-strike chant photography, and we damn well look like we're winning. 
Good Luck with it all. I do support it, but did not at first as the whole thing was a bit confusing to undergraduates.
ReplyDeleteAfter some reasearch and reading through the various bits of email that are sent , sporadically, as well as seaerching other sites and speaking to several grad student myself I hope you all get what you want.