Abstract

New School, Old Tricks

The New School University is one of Manhattan's most storied progressive institutions. But don't tell that to the people who work there. On March 11 several dozen students, labor organizers and faculty members gathered for a demonstration outside the Sheraton Hotel on 53rd Street, site of the annual La Guardia Award Dinner, a fundraising event hosted by the New School.Outside, demonstrators handed out fliers calling on the New School to "Quit Mickey Mousing Around" and recognize the right of adjunct faculty members to form a union. It's a right you would think the New School would happily recognize, given that it was founded in 1919 by John Dewey, Charles Beard and other progressive thinkers and in the 1930s formed a "University in Exile" to offer refuge to scholars fleeing fascist Europe. Yet for the past year, the New School has persistently sought to undermine an organizing drive launched by its part-time instructors, who earn on average $2,700 per course, without benefits. On March 5 the university went so far as to appeal the results of an election in which a majority of adjuncts voted to join the United Auto Workers (which represents faculty at NYU and several other universities). While the New School has raised many technical concerns about the unionization process, it has studiously avoided addressing the real issue: that it is an institution facing financial constraints and seeking to maximize its budget flexibility--and it does not want to be tethered to a union contract with its adjuncts.