NYU's Poison Ivy Itch

The public sidewalk in front of NYU's Bobst Library has hosted many protests, but the August 31 rally in support of the graduate teaching assistants union (GSOC-UAW) was especially well crafted. The protesters (more than 1,000 strong) had come to vent at the NYU administration's self-serving use of an antilabor ruling by Bush's NLRB to deep-six the union. Their rage was also fueled by the cynical timing of the NYU announcement--during the still of the summer recess--and by the dearth of any serious consultation with faculty, staff or students over the decision. The rally itself was capped by the spectacle of some of the labor movement's top people being cuffed by the NYPD for blocking the entrance to Bobst, which houses the offices of the university's senior officials. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, UNITE HERE president Bruce Raynor, UAW secretary-treasurer Elizabeth Bunn and a bevy of ranking regional officers from the UAW joined several high-profile New York City and state politicians and more than seventy graduate students from NYU, Columbia and Yale inside the paddy wagons. Faculty, students and trade unionists from all over the metro region were there to cheer them on.

The overall message was loud and clear: This was the start of a very public campaign. When one of New York's biggest and most liberal institutions gets into the business of unionbusting, it is hardly an internal matter. Communities all over the city have a rightful stake in this decision, and local politicians were quick to warn NYU administrators that there would be consequences. In a punitive response, the City Council has already denied some of NYU's customary annual requests for special dispensations.

But it was the presence of labor's big guns from Detroit and Washington that confirmed the national significance of the NYU face-off. Coming so soon after the schismatic AFL-CIO convention, it might be tempting to interpret their presence as a strenuous effort to show that the organization had not missed a beat (nor could it be ignored that the UAW affiliation of the students was far removed from the "core industry" model favored by the breakaway Change to Win Coalition). To some ears, at least, Sweeney's pledge of undying support to a group of graduate students from all his organization's affiliates sounded hyperbolic. Yet there were good reasons why NYU has become a focus of high-level attention.

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