wednesday night strike update

Because I finally have a little bit of time....

It's been an intense three days. We were all a little unsure what Monday would look like, following the Sexton email and then Sunday night's brazen attempt to trick us into returning to work by trotting out a "company union" proposal delivered by a dean at the public policy school and some medical student. But when i got to the line at 8 in the morning, there were fifty people out already, shouting loudly and adapting Blondie songs:

One way, or another, we'll get a contract
We're gonna bargain bargain bargain bargain
One day, maybe next week, we're gonna find you
and break you break you break you.

and the beach boys

Wouldn't it be nice to have a contract
then we wouldn't have to strike so long
Wouldn't it be nice to have some health care
Then we could all just get along
John Sexton should come down and settle
that would really prove his mettle
wouldn't it be nice.

Folks started defiantly making picket signs with their names on them, daring the administration "blacklist me." And indeed, we've seen some suspicious figures snapping digital photographs of us only to slink away when noticed. If they actually follow through on the threats they have made, there's going to be hell to pay.

Yesterday American Studies/Civ folks from Yale and Brown (!) came down to picket with us, three of the major east coast American Studies programs, walking the picket line and fighting for the future of academic work. Also, Andy bought a drum kit, which is totally legal since the noise isn't amplified. Sexton, fear the polyrhythm. In me news, the coolest thing that happened yesterday was the unnanounced and unexpected appearance of Cathy, whom I had not seen since the graduation I didn't attend, on the picket line at around noonish. It totally made my week.

Today, the new deadline, was even more intense. We had a great turnout. it was fucking freezing. International students delivered a powerful letter to the administration condemning their strikebreaking tactics.

December 7, 2005
John Sexton
President
New York University

This is in reply to your letter of November 28, 2005, stipulating the
deadline of December 5, 2005 for striking Graduate Assistants to return to work
or face the consequences of loss of stipend and ineligibility to teach for the
following two consecutive semesters.

The undersigned are international graduate students: some have withheld
labor since November 9, some have continued to work, some others do not have
teaching or research obligations this semester. Among the undersigned, those who
have continued working have been influenced in their decision by direct or
indirect intimidation. Out of those who are striking, some will return to work
and others will not. Those returning to work will do so in fear of the legal and
financial consequences that the implementation of your threats may carry and not
at all out of agreement with your arguments. Those who continue to strike will
do so in spite of those possible consequences, and in full awareness of the
particular risks entailed. But we are all equally outraged and will not be
silenced.

We, as international students, feel especially vulnerable to your
antagonizing, intimidating and outrageous threats. Many of us have had to deal
with increasingly restrictive U.S. immigration policies, enhanced surveillance
and record-keeping and with hostility when being questioned by immigration
officers. Some of us have suffered the threat of deportation. Thus, we are
concerned with maintaining our legal status in this country.

NYU has stated that our legal status is not in danger, yet the
administration is fully cognizant of the fact that our student visas are
contingent on our continued status as full-time students and our ability to
cover our living expenses, which in turn depends on our stipends and salaries.
Our status prevents us to a great extent from working outside campus, as well as
from applying for external grants and loans. If loans in US dollars were granted
to us by NYU, as the administration has proposed, it would be extremely
difficult to repay them when we return to our home countries.

We were invited to this institution to study and work and we came eagerly,
expecting to find an environment of respect and mutual consideration conducive
to academic advancement. But the administration's recent threats to our
well-being have significantly harmed our confidence in NYU. Such a loss of
confidence can be reversed by the administration. Under the current conditions
we cannot encourage prospective students from our respective countries from
coming to NYU. By refraining from doing so, we are following the lead of faculty
from NYU and other prestigious institutions. A good part of NYU's strength comes
from its international students. Hence, the administration's present position
weakens the institution as a whole.

We all share a commitment to academic integrity and the rights of workers,
as well as a deep belief in the possibility to resolve conflicts through
amicable negotiations. We therefore support the Graduate Student Organizing
Committee (GSOC) and will continue in various ways to argue and fight for a
reasonable contract for our labor.

NYU was the first and only private university in the United States to
recognize a union of Graduate Assistants. That was unprecedented, and laudable.
NYU now threatens Graduate Assistants with actions detrimental to their finances
and careers. This is also unprecedented, and deplorable. We therefore strongly
condemn these threats as signaling a sharp decline in NYU's intellectual and
ethical position in the academic and labor community.

We believe that the administration can easily rectify its unethical
position and palliate the antagonism it has created by withdrawing the threats
and dropping the ultimatum. It is NYU's ethical responsibility to recognize the
rights of workers and to engage in the constructive dialogue that has made this
university an outstanding academic institution.

Sincerely,
Waiel Abdelwahed, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Mariana Amato, Spanish and Portuguese
Magali Armillas-Tiseyra, Comparative Literature
Anurima Banerji, Performance Studies
Clarissa Behar, French
Diego Benegas, Performance Studies
Claudio Benzecry, Sociology
Leslie-Ann Bolden, Sociology
Paola Bonifazio, Italian
Alexandra Borer, Institute of French Studies
Michiel Bot, Comparative Literature
Nathalie Bouzaglo, Spanish and Portuguese
Lina Britto, History
Elda L. Cantú-Castillo, Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Ipek A. Celik, Comparative Literature
Elizabeth Chavez, Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Wei-chi Chen, History
Teresa Colombo, Biology
Valeria Coronel, History
Hector Martin Crocce, Physics
M. Zeynep Dadak, Cinema Studies
Santiago Deymonnaz, Spanish and Portuguese
Munir Fakher Eldin, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Rong Fan, Physics
Miao Feng, History
Carolin Hagelskamp, Community Psychology
Ellen Xiang He, Comparative Literature
Matthias Heymann, Courant Institute
Katharina Ivanyi, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Pablo Jercog, Physics
Jelena Karanovic, Anthropology
Yilmaz Kocer, Economics
David Koffman, Hebrew and Judaic Studies, History
Monika Krause, Sociology
Azra Krek, Physics
Frederic Laliberte, Courant Institute
Sanghyuk Lee, Physics
Pia Leighton, Spanish and Portuguese
Christophe Litwin, French
Mariano Lopez-Seoane, Spanish and Portuguese
Sudhir Mahadevan, Cinema Studies
Aldo Marchesi, History
Morad Masjedi, Physics
Silvana Melitsko, Economics
Lina Meruane, Spanish and Portuguese
Al Saeed Momin, Courant Institute
Alessandra Montalbano, Italian
Gulseren Mutlu, Economics
Osamu Nakano, History
Jeppe B. Nielsen, French
Rachel O'Connell, English
Alan Page, English
Yaakov Perry, Comparative Literature
Marco Polin, Physics
Stéphanie Ponsavady, French
Sebastian Pueblas, Physics
Stephen Russell, Hebrew and Judaic Studies
Marco Scalvini, Italian
Jenny Shaw, History
Mariano Siskind, Comparative Literature
Federico Sor, History
Yi Sun, Comparative Literature
Gail Super, Law and Society
Smita Tripathi, Spanish and Portuguese
Aristotelis Tsirigos, Courant Institute
Basak Tug, History, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Z. Umut Turem, Law and Society
Javier Uriarte, Spanish and Portuguese
Alejandra Uslenghi, Comparative Literature
Yeliz Utku, Chemistry
Agnes Veto. Hebrew and Judaic Studies
Emily Wilbourne, Music

The International human Rights day rally in the park was good. The airport hotel folks who have been out on strike for over a year now were inspiring. Sarah from history (everyone in GSOC is named either Matt or Sara(h). Discuss) was terriffic, linking the strike to accesibility of higher education, the right to organize, and the right to a voice on the job.

this is pretty awesome

We are seeing retrenchment and reaction on the part of university administrators and some pointless and frustrating gestures by faculty who need to recognize that graduate assistants on this campus have demonstrated repeatedly that we will only accept a new contract with our union as a satisfactory resolution to this dispute. You want to end the strike? So do we. Support the union.

More later. I need to sleep now.

Oh. One more thing. Today's the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Yale Grade Strike. The academy is still reeling from the viciousness and the brutality with which Levin and anti-union faculty crushed that action. We can not let a revanchist, reactionary climate of repression and fear triumph here. We can't let what Yale administrators and "liberal" faculty did to graduate employees happen at any university ever again. We need to stay strong now to ensure that academic workers have the right in the future to organize ourselves, that an NYU education is more than "an education in cynicism," as Gordon Lafer referred to Yale schooling, and because right now the entire labor movement is counting on us.