One of my favorite CD photos (via Pirate Linguist.)

Prison Notebooks, parte duo

Gothamist had a post about the civil disdobedience yesterday. Besides posting a picture of us being lined up to get loaded on the wagons (you can see the back of my head,) the folks at Gothamist link to two flickr pages, one by "insky", who took this picture of me and a couple people named Matt being arrested, whike Mike bangs on the drums in the foreground, and one by someone who is apparently an NYU grad student who has some great pictures you should all check out, like this one, and this one. Another Flickr poster, The Pirate Linguist, has some other amazing pics, mostly of linguists, like this one, and this picture of Holly at the convention podium.

Respect our *&%*&ing Majority/The Prison Notebooks

At noon yesterday, hundreds of NYU graduate students came together to reaffirm the majority support of our bargaining unit for a new contract. We were joined by undergraduates, by faculty, by folks from Yale and Penn and Columbia and Rutgers and CUNY, and by really adorable newborn babies. We heard from chemists, economists, creative writers (Holly, who made me cry), historians, John Wilhelm (who also made me cry,) NYC comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., the president-elect of the AAUP (Cary Nelson), and UAW secretary-treasurer Elisabeth Bunn, who assured everyone that as soon as we win here at NYU, we're all going to get on a bus up to New Haven. Many people found this powerful. I guess I kind of took that as a given. Mike Palm read a letter of support for our union to the NYU administration from both of New York's U.S. senators.

When the speakers finished, we marched out of Judson Church and across Washington Square Park, where SH from English and Stuart Acuff from the AFL-CIO spoke. Acuff put our fight in a global context, and SH talked about why she was getting arrested, and then we filed out into the street and blocked traffic and chanted and cheered. The police officers arrested us and loaded us into two wagons and a bus and drove us onto the west side highway and underneath the Battery and then to the driveway into One Police Plaza where we sat in the bus and wagons for over an hour in handcuffs waiting to be moved into pens. It was hot in the busses and the handcuffs were uncomfortable, athough the arresting officers were actually really sympathetic and loosened people's cuffs if they were too tight. Eventually we were moved into pens separated by gender. All the men - or folks the cops decided were men - were moved into one big holding cell, while the women were moved into cells with two or three or four people. We sang and drummed a little. Matt V. and I whistled a duet of "Blue Train." Every time someone was released, we applauded loudly. Then we deided that the police were keeping us longer for every time we clapped. We kept clapping anyway.

I was one of the last people to be released, at around 8:20 in the evening. (The arrest came at arround 1:30 PM.) GSOCers waited on the curb outside One Police Plaza and welcomed all the released folks as they were led out by their arresting officers. When the final arrestee was released, about ten minutes after I got out, we all went out to dinner together.

The action seems at this point to have been extremely successful. The administration is on the defensive again. We are sending loud and clear the message to John Sexton and the University Leadership Team that our strike is not going to go away. We are not dwindling. We are not waning. We are growing. And we're going to keep growing, and keep fighting until we win a just and democratic university.

57 Teaching Assistants Arrested at N.Y.U. Sit-In for Union Rights
Trying to Raise The Stakes at NYU
A More Activist AAUP?
A Great Day For GSOC
NYU Grad Student Strike
GSOC Protests, 57 Arrested.

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Seven hours later

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NYU Trustee or fictional gnome?

Blogging about the myriad of things i should be blogging about has been derailed by the crushing weight of coursework and the onslaught of organizing for thursday's GSOC Member Convention, about which i am much more excited at the moment than I am about coursework. I'll hopefully be able to post a reportback when all that's done, but I do want to announce that I just bought the Coup's new album, Pick a Bigger Weapon, at Other Music, and I'm excited to hear it. Steal This Album and especially Party Music, the last two records, are two of my all time favorite CDs. Whereas dead prez took the revolutionary-gangsta dyad into the realm of absurd masculinist hyperbole, Boots Riley always finds a way to integrate a wry sense of humor and incredibly powerful invocations of a transformative black cultural politics with his funked-up postMaoist call to arms to create some fantastic music - "Lazymuthafucka" and "5 million ways to kill a CEO" come to mind and helped me stay sane during the craziness of 2002-2003. It's been a very long five years since Party Music. The world has clearly needed a new Coup record for a while - not that Party Music doesn't withstand the test of time, but we're talking about a record that was finished in June 2001. That was a long time ago.

"Pro-union but most lost their bite
I'm anti motherfuckers crossing a strike"

One night years ago, sleeping in my bed in my apartment in New Haven, i had a dream. In my dream, Richard Levin was gloating, prancing, even. While he rejoiced in his autocratic power over the globalized neoliberal university, he proclaimed, following LL Cool J, "Deepest. Bluest. My head is like a shark's fin."

“They say I take up a place in this country, but I don’t exist.”

Orlando from anthropology answers last week's lame WSN editorial on GSOC's presence at the immigrant rights march with one of the most moving and powerful pieces of writing about the strike that I've read thus far, after 163 days (i'm writing in the wee hours of day 164.) Orlando talks about the ways in which GSOC's struggle is not merely metaphorically, but also very concretely tied to the struggle for just recognition of the work that immigrants do and their rights to a voice in their work, a path to citizenship, to freedom of movement, and freedom from preemptive policing, indefinite detention, and "terrorist" demonizations.

GSOC was just one among hundreds of organizations who in a matter of days
came together to stand up for immigrant rights in New York City. In a time of
fading hope and inspiration, we should all welcome this massive mobilization of
disenfranchised people like a shot of adrenaline in the political arm of all our
progressive causes.

But GSOC also has a more direct investment in the rights of immigrants,
as do the several hundred international students who make up a third of our
membership. When President Sexton announced his Thanksgiving plan to cut the pay
of striking teaching assistants, international students faced more than a loss
of pay — they also faced the threat of deportation. In other words, by losing
their income and not having legal permission to work, they could fall “out of
status” on their student visas and lose permission to stay in the country.
Immigration policy was thus an ally of the administration in damaging the
strength of the strike.

When I decided to stay out on strike, I didn’t have to worry about
immigration policy. At City Hall, I told the following story:

“As a child, six months old, nobody asked me for permission when, in the
hands of strangers, I crossed over the international bridge at Laredo, Tejas,
con papeles prestados. I can’t tell you how, but months later, my mother drafted
her own DREAM Act of 1982 and made me an American citizen.”

I was the first to gain the status of a citizen in a family that has
trickled across the Texas border since I was born. As such, I grew up with
privileges I couldn’t quite explain. I could pass easily through border
checkpoints while Immigration and Naturalization Service officers questioned my
cousins for hours, making sure they had no need to work in the United States. I
could apply for scholarships and attend elite institutions while thousands of
capable and deserving students across the country and in my own household could
not.

Ironically, it was as a graduate assistant when I first experienced the
denial of my rights and how hard it is to claim them when not protected by the
law.

Soon after hearing about the HR 4437 deportation bill, I spoke over the
phone with my uncle, an exemplary student in Mexico in his own time whose degree
in computer science doesn’t “count” in the U.S. He is normally allergic to
politics, but this proposed legislation spurred him to attend information
sessions in Houston and mobilize the rest of the family, including me. He had a
precise analysis of the situation: “They say I take up a place in this country,
but I don’t exist.”

Video Killed The Union Buster

Steve Fletcher's five minute trailer video about the strike is now online and viewable here.

This scene is not in it:

However, you should watch it anyway. particularly awesome is the picket line footage, the moment when City Council Member Robert Jackson informed NYU that they wouldn't get *&^ until they stopped trying to break the union, the scenes from inside Bobst Library on November 30th, and Sonya hiding behind the rat for no apparent reason.

320 pages into Policing The Crisis.

It's pretty brilliant stuff.

More later. Now, sleep.

Mets interlude

Pedro Martínez won his 200th game yesterday as the Mets beat the Braves 4-3 on Pedro's 8-strikeout pitching perfomance, the stregnth of the revamped bullpen, and home runs by Xavier Nady and Carlos Delgado. The Mets currently, and shockingly, havre the best record in baseball. Moves Minaya made in the offseason which attracted a lot of scrutiny now seem to have paid off. Xavier Nady, who nobody thought could really replace someone like Mike Cameron, has been fantastic. Duaner Sanchez, for whom the Mets gave up Jae Seo to the Dodgers, has still yet to allow a run, and while I wlaways thought the Delgado acquisition was a great move, he's been pretty much everything anyone could hope for. Even Beltran's been pretty good - at least before he injured his hamstring and sat out the last few games. And Tom Glavine's been the 2-time Cy Young award winning Tom Glavine, not the 4.50 ERA Tom Glavine. The Mets will play the Braves 18 more times this season, but I'm cautiously optimistic...

Upper East Side - On Strike!

Steven Greenhouse reports on the looming strike deadline for 28,000 NYC doormen and superintendents this week.

Tensions are greater than usual because management says it is being
squeezed by rising health and heating costs, while the union, Local 32BJ of the
Service Employees International Union, says soaring real estate prices should
make it easy for management to afford a generous contract.

"The industry continues to enjoy increasing real estate values and rents,
and they can easily afford the kind of increases we need," said Michael Fishman,
the union's president.
Management complains that it will pay $10,700 for
health coverage next year for each of the union's doormen, elevator operators,
handymen, porters and superintendents, up $1,000 from this year. To help offset
the rising costs, management is demanding a wage freeze in the first year of a
new three-year contract.

Mr. Fishman said the union could not accept a freeze because workers
are facing higher costs for rent, fuel, food and college educations for their
children. The union has also rejected management's proposals to have workers
switch to 401(k) plans from traditional pensions, and to begin paying 15 percent
of their health insurance costs.

"Their proposal on health insurance would mean in effect a 4 percent cut in
pay," Mr. Fishman said, noting that the workers earn an average of $37,300 a
year.

"It's a terrible atmosphere in this country for unions," he added. "Every
negotiation is a defensive one, and we're going to draw the line."
*****

In lopsided votes during the past month, Local 32BJ's members authorized their leaders to call a strike if talks falter before Friday.

"A wage freeze is a terrible idea — it's unacceptable," said Edward Bonilla, a concierge at 300 East 74th Street, a co-op building with 238 apartments.

"Everything is going up right now. My kids are going to college. I can hardly pay for that. The way I see it, a wage freeze, givebacks on medical, on pensions, they would all be a strike issue."

The two sides say it is hard to assess the likelihood of a walkout, although they agree that a strike seems likelier than at any other time in the past decade. The apartment building workers last walked out in 1991, in a 12-day strike.

Although maybe I'm missing the point, and what really needs to be wrestled with is the discourse of civility/quality of life as transformed by the securitized state discourses of post-9/11, post-Giuliani NYC, which is so fluid as to become applicable to both, and indeed to conflate Yankees fans jumping onto netting off the upper deck and protestors beaten in the street by NYPD riot police playing rent-a-cops to the republicans who've paid Mayor Bloomberg millions to rent out midtown manhattan as a privatized, militarized space from which 9/11 can be best exploited as a generative site for imperial politicking. The indignation of the earlier post is perhaps a cop out on my part when really this opens up a series of possible investigations into the ways in which the security state intervenes in discourses of citizenship, behavior, and subjectivity.

Claiming that the RNC arrests were about civility is about as ridiculous as claiming that academic unions are bad because they make universities more corporate. Both display a complete lack of knowledge, research and critical inquiry. I have come to expect this from hostile college newspapers, but the New York Times, particularly in a peice which is ostensibly objectove news reporting, is supposed to be better than this.

In Loving Memory of Russell Jones, the graduate employee union at New York University shall henceforth be known as Big Baby GSOC.

People keep trying to convince me to start therapy as if i am an individual in need of correction. Others have alleged that I am a little masturbator, while I remain troubled by my suspicions that I am in fact a moral monster. Nevertheless, "I Don't Wanna Be Learned-I Don't Wanna Be Tamed."

work in progress, for passover

to the tune of "Go Down Moses"

When GSOC's holding picket signs,
give us a contract
Future of the academy's on the line
give us a contract

Fight on, GSOC,
Fight on against Jack Lew's plans
and tell old Sexton
to give us a contract.

nueva haven

As the post below might indicate to the extremely intiated, I was in New Haven very briefly last night for a couple of hours for a seder that a friend graciously invited me to. The attendees were more conservative than most New Haven seders i've been to, but seemed like generally nice people, and it felt good to be at a seder where the haggadah was a text subject to discussion and critique rather than something to rush through so my family could eat and then sing "we're loyal to you, Illinois" and drive all the kids (which, for better or worse, generally still includes me at 24) downstairs to the television. (Don't worry, they know I love them.) Plus, there were copies of the Vladeck-Astorga 2001-2002 Freedom Seder Haggadah, "How can we live socialistically in a capitalist world" and all, delved into, which made me happy. I did miss my baby cousins , though.

It was a little surreal being back on Bishop Street for the first time since moving out, almost two years ago, from the apartment I'd lived in for two very intense years, two strikes, a Better Way Village and a couple of building occupations (CBS, retirees, etc.) Previous returns to New Haven have generally confined me to the SML-Julie and Lauren's apartment-Union office-burrito cart circuit. Bishop Street was as beautiful as always, making me wish, a little bit, that I still lived in New Haven, despite my fondness for Sunset Park. My old apartment building looks the same, although the super now has satellite television, apparently. I caught the last train home and kind of wished I could stay and beg off coursework and the strike and the rest of my life for a few more days and catch up with folks I haven't seen in a while, but ultimately decided I need to be here and productive and do laundry and all that stressful stuff.


random shuffle:
Man Man - "Spider Cider"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Y Control"
Xiu Xiu - "Ale"
Joanna Newsom - "Sadie"
Les Savy Fav - Blackouts on Thursday
Camper Van Beethoven - "Down and Out"
The Fall - "Leave The Capitol"
Minutemen - "D's Car Jam/Anxious MoFo"
The Wowz - "Distant + Wide"
Blondie - "Hanging On The Telephone"

Calle Obispo.

maintenance

I've created a new sidebar entry, which is best viewed on firefox, but you can see it if you are using internet explorer, you just have to scroll way down for some reason. (Anyone know how to fix that?) Anyway, it's an non-exhaustive archive of my favorite or most notorious posts about the strike and academic labor over the last seven or eight months since I started grad school. Check it out.

N dubba wubba

Trac rally.

hunger strike

The University of Miami janitors' hunger strike enters its second week.

Via USAS:

UNICCO and their stepchild (the administration) are gravely mistaken. Workers
shall not be silenced; students shall not be stalled. We won't sit by and wait
for UNICCO and SEIU to find a fair process free of intimidation, threats, and
harassment. Such illegal anti-union tactics are continuing today. Workers have
waited for "the process." They have waited five years; meetings have never
brought results, and hoping has only led to desperation. It is solely the direct
action and civil disobedience of workers and students along with amazing
community support that has created change. We are well taken care of in "Freedom
City" and have access to our own network of support staff that is laboriously
toiling to ensure our safety and comfort during this action. A registered nurse
visits the tent city daily to take vitals a nd ensure our safety. We the
students understand the risk associated with a hunger strike and are taking all
necessary precautions to avoid health problems that could arise. We are taking
this measure because we must. We need your enduring support that you have showed
us in the past more than ever. It has been a comfort through this struggle. Your
support can be shown in visits to Freedom City with classes, encouraging events
and meetings to occur here, bottled water, and continuing education surrounding
the issue. Other events will be communicated to you as they are made. I will
leave you with a quote in which students have found inspiration:"If you have
come to help me, you are wasting your time; but if you've come because your
liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." - Lila Watson Why
should you participate?/ Why this is being done? The University of Miami's
service contractor, UNICCO, has violated several labor laws. These violations
include Spying, interrogating, firing and threatening workers with reprisals
becuase of their union sympathies. Meanwhile, UM allows the rumor that they will
drop the contract with UNICCO if they unionize to continue. UNICCO has made
refrences that this may happen and all the workers will be fired. UM is
responsible for the dramatic increase in illegal anti-union tactics by UNICCO,
becuase UNICCO fears its contract may be cut if they don't fight the union and
nail.The struggle at UM has garnered the support of thousands of people
throughout the nation, but UM maintans a false nuetrality in the face of what is
clearly an injustice. President of UM's Donna Shalala has allowed the situation
to escelate out of control so that workers feel their only recourse to justice
is through a hunger strike. After seven days of not eating, two workers have
been sent to the hospital. All this for protecting the human right to organize!
UM allows civil rights vioalations to continue at the expense of workers and
students health!
Call and E-mail the President and Vice President and tell
them:*That you support workers efforts, and are horrified that UM has allowed
this to escelate to a hunger strike.*That it is never OK to fire a worker for
their union sympathies, and that the right to organize is a human right! *That
they should respect workers rights to unionize in what method they choose *That
they should publicly announce they will not cut the contract with UNICCO if they
unionize. University of Miami Administration:President Donna Shalala -
Phone:305-284-5155 email: dshalala@miami.edu Vice
President Patricia Whitely- Phone: 305-284-4922 email: pwhitely@miami.edu

Via Inside Higher Ed

Nine janitors and six students began their fast on April 4. On day four of
the water-only fast, one worker, Isabel Montalvo, experienced irregular blood
pressure and had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. On day five,
another janitor, Odalys Rodriguez, was taken to the hospital after a medical
professional determined she was at risk for a stroke.
More students will join
the protest Wednesday, according to leaders of Student Towards a New
Democracy, or STAND. And janitors have also reached out to members of
Harvard College’s Student Labor Action Movement to help put more pressure on the
university’s president, Donna E. Shalala.

update

Good amNY article on the march/rally. Puts count at 125,000. mentions GSOC. (via Nerds on Strike)

Mere Labor, Dr. Boghossian

Columbia University students sit in to protest university subcontracting to garment industry sweatshops (via USAS):

FROM OUR STUDENTS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Today, students sit in Low Library
(the Office of the President) to demand that Columbia square its policies with
its values. We are sitting-in to demand that Columbia adopt the Designated
Suppliers Program, mandating that our collegiate apparel be made in factories
where workers have democratic representation and to which companies pay enough
to allow workers to negotiate for a living wage from management. We presented
this proposal to Columbia in September and they have failed to act, though ten
other universities already have. We have sat through countless meetings and
navigated all possible channels through the university bureaucracy. President
Bollinger claims to support "the goal of promoting basic fairness in wages,
working conditions, and a voice for workers," but he refuses to take the
practical steps necessary to make sure those goals are met. We sit asking
President Bollinger to live up to his own values. While we sit, thousands of
students, workers, and immigrants rally across the country today in support of
immigrant rights. They march for respect, justice, and hope. We sit, also, in
support of them and in support of their families. They left their countries
looking for a better life, in part, because they live in countries with jobs
that offered poor wages, working conditions, and little respect. By fighting for
the Designated Suppliers Program and a Sweat-free campus, we sit in solidarity
with their struggles.
We hope that President Bollinger joins the presidents
of Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, and Syracuse in
their support of the Designated Suppliers Program. Columbia University
Administration:President Bollinger: bollinger@columbia.edu,
212.854.9970

Roger Toussaint is sentenced to ten days in jail. This is unjust and outrageous. The Taylor law needs to go.

And who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people were with me downtown this afternoon in the latest iteration of what may be, as far as I know, the first mass uprising of undocumented workers in this country's history? There were 500,000 people in Dallas yesterday! (italics for emphasis, not to denote the TV show of the same name.) Here's what Bread and Roses has to say about it:http://nerdsforgsoc.blogspot.com/2006/04/estamos-aqui-y-no-vamos.html.

(LA)

En Greve

What looks like victory in the fight against the erosion of job security in France...

PARIS, April 10 — French President Jacques
Chirac announced today that a contested labor law would be taken off the
books, handing a victory to student groups and labor unions who have
demonstrated in the millions in recent weeks to have the measure
scrapped.

The announcement is a blow for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, the
chief architect of the law, who until late last week still categorically ruled
out dropping the legislation. It comes only eight days after Mr. Chirac had
formally enacted the legislation, albeit with promises of a speedy revision and
far-reaching modifications.

But over the last week, students and union officials made it clear that
they would not be satisfied with anything less than a withdrawal of article 8 —
the part of the legislation which creates a controversial new contract that
makes it easier for employers to fire young workers.

Union leaders and student representatives were to meet later today to
decide whether Mr. Chirac's promise to "replace" the contract was enough to drop
their demand for formal abrogation.

Early reactions appeared to be favorable.

"The CPE is dead and buried," said Jean-Claude Mailly of the FO union. "The
goal has been achieved."

Francois Chereque, head of the CFDT, France's
largest union, told Agence-France Presse: "If there is a new text in which the
CPE does not appear, that will mean it has been withdrawn, that is what
counts."

Julie Coudry, president of the Student Confederation, one of the
organizations behind the two-month protest movement said on LCI television:
"Today I think we can say that they have finally understood and that we are
satisfied, I think it's the word we can use."

working on presentation for tomorrow on really interesting book about writing instruction and casualization.

Today is the beginning of month six of the strike. Had a long talk with my roomate about race at Yale, sparked by all the shit at Duke. Had a much less consequential talk with someone in one of my classes in the library about Buffy, Sports Night, the RNC, and grad school. Had lunch with my mom.

Excited about the march tomorrow even if i'll miss the GSOC contingent's feeder from Washington Square Park due to aforementioned presentation. I want reportbacks. I always want reportbacks. I swear I'll post something substantial at some point. For now, i leave you with the following opinions on popular music.

1.Destroyer's Rubies is probably the best solo Dan Bejar stuff i have ever heard. I didn't get much out of Your Blues and didn't even buy the last one, but this is a fantastic cd.

2.The new Yeah Yeah Yeahs is really dissappointing and sounds like they just decided to cover "maps" and/or "modern romance" badly on like 10 of the 11 songs. A lot of what made me like the band in the first place, the punch of songs like "Art Star" and "Rich" and "Pin" and "Y Control" is just not here and it makes for kind of a bland record.

3.I really like The Bush Tetras. The Gang of Four influence is really clear, but they sing about stuff in such markedly different ways, and listening to them it becomes clear how influential they've been for a whole subgenre of politicized post-post-punk a la Sleater-Kinney. Although, apparently, so was "King of Rock."

You really need to watch this.

When Things Get Rough, He Just Hides Behind His Buffy

Woke up later than I wanted to, took the train rather than walking to Manhattan because of the crappy weather, (watched the latest episode of Veronica Mars on my Ipod though, which was kind of nice) read about casualization (Slaughter and Roades, Washburn, Aronowitz, and a piece on the NYU adjunct organizing from Social Text 70,) hopped on train, came home, felt lonely and alienated (completely of my own doing, so no right complaining,) and turned to "Welcome To The Hellmouth" for consolation before I start working on my presentation for monday.
Wow, pointless entry. How retro!

sesquicentedial.

Or whatever the daily equivalent of sesquicentennial is. My never particularly exhaustive knowledge of Latin is much depleted from its former grandeur. In any event, today marks the 150th day of GSOC's strike. (Sunday is the end of the fifth month, or the beginning of the sixth, however you want to count it.) Things are picking up in the organizing. I'm optimistic about the next few weeks, and I'm excited to continue and escalate this fight. Whether or not we win a contract tomorrow, and indeed, even after we have won a contract, which believe very strongly that we can and will, if not tomorrow, we will still have a huge fight ahead of us - to expand our union to folks excluded from the original bargaining unit, and to continue to fight for social justice on this campus, in this city, and across the contours of the globalized neoliberal academy.

In honor of the fact that Abbey's here in NYC and I got to see her for the first time in over two years, I'll conclude with the West Wingian exhortation, "Screw It, It's Game Time, Let's Go."


10 random songs from my ipod's shuffle mode. (Do people still do this?)
Modest Mouse - "The Devil's Workday"
John Lennon - "Imagine"
m83 - "moonchild"
Desmond Dekker - Shanty Town (007)
The Fall - "That Man"
Radiohead - "Life in a Glass House"
Yo La Tengo - "spec Bebop"
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra - "Si, Se Puede"
Liz Phair - "Explain it to me"
Common - Nuthin' to Do

Sixty Minutes of Luke

At the Town Hall Meeting last night, John Sexton stated unecquivocally that no matter how many graduate students on this campus express their support for a union, he will continue to stand in the way of a second contract for us. He likened himself to George Bush when Susan asked him if he was saying that those of us who objected to his imperious unilaterlaism should just leave, likening us to people wondering whether they should move to Canada after the 2004 election. He declined to offer any kind of timetable to people asking about summer funding, any kind of moral compass or professional standards for accepting donations when queried about the Shelby White fiasco. He turned to tautology to offer a farcical explanation for the cuts to health care, claiming that it was not that NYU had ceased to pay 100% of the premium, but rather that the benefits had diminished. He arrogantly accused Paul Kershaw of faulty historigraphy when Paul pointed out the absurdity of the claim that we are not workers, "lamented" the devaluation of the humanities which he has done a great deal to foment, admitted that the return to a 2-class/semester teaching load for creative writing students in the expository writing program was a very real possibility. As Steve put it,

“NYU used cutting teaching loads as a PR strategy last fall to attempt to gain sympathy in a community they were betraying,” said Steve Fletcher, a second-year graduate student in American Studies. “After Sexton announced that their generosity was a temporary PR stunt, I’m not sure why anyone would trust him again.”

Draped in his usual faux-proletarian Yankee cap and Brooklyn Prep sweatshirt. Sexton refused to draw any limit to the extent to which he was willing to destroy the university in order to try to break the union when asked. He also called me "Luke." Whether I'm Luke Campbell, Luke Skywalker (paraphrasing Obi-Wan, if you lock us out, we shall only grow more powerful,) Luke Wilson, or Luke from the OC, i am left to ponder. In his response to me, he spoke conspiratorially of "other people" who were bereft of the capacity for reason and measured judgement in their condemnation of his union-busting. Five minutes later he categorically denied having engaged in acts of villification against GSOC. We who constitute the collective virus, as Sexton has called us, had a hard time taking this at face value.

Unlike the previous Sexton Town Hall back in September, which I left feeling angry but ineffective, I, like many others, found this confrontation productive and energizing. Not only did we obtain some pretty disgusting answers from the president of the university, we also articulated to each other and to him why we are/need the union, why we remain on strike after five months, committed to winning a just contract and contesting the casualization and neoliberalization of the academy with a collective and constituent democratic vision of a better university, new forms aqnd structures of teaching and learning, forging new and dynamic relationships between the work we do and the spaces we inhabit and interact with.

I finally got to make the comment I was going to make back in September, rejecting the trope of the union as intermediary and the constant assertions that the conversation was over, and that the administration was "past" the union in favor of a reminder that, as the chant goes, we are the union, and are very much here in the present, and are fully committed to fighting for our future and that of the university we want to work in. Others spoke powerfully - A sociologist called on Sexton to lead other universities in a struggle against casualization rather than tow the line set by Levin, Bollinger, and Rodin/Gutman. Paul, as I noted above, shut the door on the stupid debate about whether or not we are workers, which really ended a long time ago and only gets ressucitated by university administrators and those who have something to gain by furthering casualization. "Third Year American Studies student," who refused to name himself to Sexton and whom I will not name here in favor of his designation in the WSN article, pointed to the imperial erasures of any meaningful kind of collective voice for graduate workers in the university's actions, while Tricia made clear what being a union has meant for graduate teachers at NYU and why we will continue to fight to remain so, not, as Sexton would have it, because we're reactionaries who want to return to a past which has slipped by us, but because we want a university in which all workers are respected, all teachers have a voice in our work, which is ruled not by fiat and corporate robber-barons who slash teachers' health care even as they raise tuition astronomically, but guided, transparently and democratically, by the people who teach and research here, towards something which arises from, interacts with in honest and egalitarian dialogue, and works to support and foster spaces of community rather than colonizing them, leveling them, and replacing them with profitable yuppie real estate developments inhabitable only by those students who/whose families can afford the ever-increasing cost of a university where the president makes $897,000 a year.

“We want a university that does not rely on casualized, vulnerable labor, and we are going to remain on strike until the administration comes to the bargaining table,” said Maggie Clinton, a sixth-year graduate student in history.

“John Sexton keeps saying that the only people disagreeing with him are the five or so renegade members of GSOC,” said Amy LeClair, a third-year graduate student in sociology. “I think what he’ll see tonight is that a majority of graduate students — both on strike and not — still support the union.”

It's 42 degrees and snowing on april 5th. I'm confused. I will post soon on the town hall.

the post before last was mostly incoherent. I used "tomorrow night" twice in the same sentence. The perils of blogging when exhausted. I apologize for that. This post won't be particularly substantial.

NYU is jacking up undergrad tuition by 5.3%, to around $34,000, $47,000 when one factors in housing and fees. There has been no commitment to reveal the budgetary necessity for such an insanely high tuition or any kind of increased commitment to undergraduate financial aid to meet the difficulties students will have in meeting this increased burden.

Asaf Shtull-Trauring, a CAS junior and a founding member of the Tuition
Reform Action Coalition at NYU, said it is difficult to pinpoint why tuition has
increased beyond the inflation rate, as the university does not disclose its
budget. The coalition, which promotes affordability and accessibility at the
university, is endorsed by 2,200 undergraduates who have signed a petition in
the group’s ongoing campaign for tuition reform.
“This is by default an
issue where many people support it,” Shtull-Trauring said. “I have no doubt that
a majority of the campus is behind the campaign.”
On Feb. 15, the group sent
a open letter to NYU President John Sexton asking for disclosure of the
university’s budget breakdown and creation of a committee of faculty members,
administrators and students to help shape tuition decisions. The university
responded that such a committee exists in the Student Senators Council, and
refused to disclose its budget, Shtull-Trauring said. On Feb. 24, the council
petitioned the university to align tuition hikes with the inflation rate.
Of
the top 50 undergraduate programs in the country, NYU is No. 1 in the category
of students most dissatisfied with financial aid, according to an Aug. 29, 2005
report from U.S. News and World Report.
The coalition is currently drafting
a response to the university about the proposed tuition increase and has also
organized an April 11 rally at Washington Square Park.
GSP sophomore Tania
Nourmand said that though she receives financial aid, she believes the
university could be doing more to help needy students cope with the hike.
“I’m very upset about it because I already have financial aid and it’s
already difficult for me to go to this school,” she said.

This Just In: TRAC has announced a Rally to oppose the tuition hike at 12:15 PM next tuesday, 4/11/06.

And while i have problems with this Inside Higher Ed article on the strike - the headline, the paragraph on 7902 (the adjuncts), the claim that we're in the 16th week of the strike (21st, actually. 22nd as of tomorrow,) I'll link to it anyway. As per the late grades conundrum, Epstein could have spoken to some of the people who were threatened with academic sanctions for not turning in grades. His vagueness on this matter is a boon to John Beckman. That said, I'm guardedly optimistic about the rest of the semester (strikewise, at least.) Like Susan and many others, I very much believe that we can win, that the organizing we are doing right now is preparing us to ramp things up and push the strike forward. That's why I'll be at John Sexton's Town Hall Meeting tonight at 8:30 in the Silver Center's Jurow Hall - to demonstrate to the president that his attempts to crush this strike have backfired and that we will not go away and will not tolerate an agenda which has so threatened collective attemopts to constitute a democratic and just university.

He's like an anti-fanon.

And he's got the letters from fascist poets to prove it!

honk if you're lonely tonight

Strange day. I'm extremely stressed out about the amount of work i have to do, and the amount of organizing i have to do, and the fact that it's already April 3rd.

Was feeling lost and then got a text message from Ana and went and got some fake chicken and talked about life.

I am working on rewriting "Bastards of Young" to be about the strike. This feels horribly wrong. Alek will doubtless excoriate me. But "Dreams unfulfilled/graduates deskilled" nevertheless seems rather trenchant. Also working on "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" as part of my recent fascination with Journey and Steve Perry which transcends simple hipster irony.

Of late i seem rather adept at pissing off people i like. I credit this to the confused feeling of ineptitude that's been dogging me for the last week or two.

Tomorrow night, if you aren't an NYU grad student and thus aren't at John Sexton's "Town Hall" meeting like I will be tomorrow night, go check out Thomas, who's playing at a benefit for Daniel Macgowan.

Tuesday, April 4th, 7pm-at-71 Troutman St (JMZ to Myrtle, walk east on
Myrtle and left on Troutman), Bushwick, Brooklyn-come see-Some folk---->Ryan
Harvey and Tom Frampton (http://www.riotfolk.org/)Some
punk---->Oogle Orphanage, Shortstack (featuring Ella & Sweettooth), and
Eat this McKinley (from the south- Tenessee) Some hiphop--->D_Cyphernauts (http://www.thenauts.com/)

Federal Plaza

Outside my window, folks draped in Mexican flags are walking to the subway. The are heading to Cadman Plaza, where NYC is going to have our own demonstration for immigrant rights, marching across the brooklyn bridge.

I'm going to walk in that direction and try to catch up. If not, I'm there in spirit...