NYU tries to weaken the nation’s first private University graduate student union by replacing its graduate students with casual labor in the form of…other graduate students:
NYU has come under fire from its graduate students union for hiring grad students from Columbia University and calling them adjuncts, a tactic that the union says lets the university pay Columbia students less for doing work usually done by unionized NYU students.
United Auto Workers Local 2110 filed a grievance with NYU’s Office of Labor Relations Jan. 15, claiming that the positions being filled by the Columbia grad students, who make no more than $4,000 at NYU, should have been given to NYU grad students, who would be making between $12,000 and $17,000.
…While union representatives acknowledged that NYU has a right to determine who it employ, they said NYU is “outsourcing” teaching jobs at a greater rate than in the past. “This is the first time they seem to be doing this at this level and scope,” said Sudhir Mahadevan, unit chair for Local 2110.
Josh Eidelson 