New York University faculty celebrated a major win on March 25th after reaching a tentative agreement following a two-day strike. Their new contract would provide a substantive 20% raise, bringing their salaries closer to meeting the cost of living in one of the world’s most expensive cities. If the contract is approved by union members, 95% of union faculty will make more than $100,000 annually. This still falls below the amount needed for a single adult to meet the cost of living in New York City, which is closer to $159,000 a year. For reference, the average individual cost of attendance for each of the 29,000 undergraduates these faculty are teaching is more than $100,000 a year.
Negotiations had been ongoing for nearly 17 months, and the conflict emerged from the key issue of the restructuring of how professors are employed and paid by the university. Historically at NYU and other universities, faculty were hired into tenure-track positions, with job security and compensation reflective of their roles as respected professionals. These positions have been steadily eliminated at NYU and across the country, with universities finding substantial cost savings through lower-paid and less secure contract positions. Despite making up more than half the faculty at the university, and despite having the same education, teaching, and research requirements as tenure-track professors, faculty hired into these contract positions earned on average 36% less than their tenure-track peers.
NYU is a multi-billion dollar organization, technically classified as a nonprofit although its executives and administrators such as President Linda Mills make over a million dollars a year. NYU administrators claimed that the strike was “fundamentally unnecessary,” disrupted the students’ education, and neglected the “collective responsibility” owed to the students.
The strike had broad support from the university community, with over 2,000 students signing a letter demanding a fair contract for their professors, and 250 tenured and tenure-track faculty also signing in support. Undergraduate Sara Ettinger stated, “The fact that the people who are running the university are making upward of a million dollars, whereas our professors can’t make enough to comfortably live, is so insane.”
We agree that the current system of ever-increasing worker exploitation for maximum profit is neither sustainable nor sane. We stand with the faculty of NYU, who are the people actually doing the work of teaching the classes and doing the research, as they fight for the job stability and living wages they deserve.
