Student employees at The New School thronged outside President David Van Zandt’s office Thursday, May 4, because they were angry that their votes to unionize had not been counted.
The vote, which was held Wednesday and Thursday, came after weeks of contention between student employees and the administration, but students started protesting almost immediately afterwards.
School administrators blamed the National Labor Relations Board for not releasing the vote totals.
“The National Labor Relations Board has decided to hold off on counting these votes until they finish a final review of which specific positions are eligible for the union,” Van Zandt said in an email to the university’s faculty and student senates earlier that day.
“This is a very unusual delay for the NLRB and we are urging the Board to resolve this matter quickly as the entire New School community deserves to know the outcome of this election as soon as possible,” the president added.
President Van Zandt told the faculty and student senates that the administration will provide updates as soon as they get more information.
This “final review” refers to the university’s official request for review which they sent to NLRB. Two weeks ago, the administration filed a request for review on the eligibility to be part of the unit. In an email, Van Zandt claimed that this was a small eligibility issue about a few positions.
“It’s not specific positions, it’s more the idea that there are some people who are quickly in and out in the workforce, they don’t have the same interests say as a Ph.D student who has a fellowship or stipend,” he previously told The New School Free Press.
On Thursday, Juliana Broad, a undergraduate student at The New School for Public Engagement, stood outside the The New School for Social Research, snagging students on their way to class.
“Are you a student worker? Have you voted?” she asked passersby.
She was referring to the two-year effort that SENS-UAW, an organization led by the student employees at The New School, has made to unionize.
On April 7, the NLRB gave student workers the right to vote to unionize. Those eligible to vote included all currently enrolled course assistants, teaching assistants, teaching fellows, research assistants, and tutors who have worked during any semester since spring of last year.
The canvassers and organization members, who manned the voting polls this past Wednesday and Thursday, followed up the polls’ close with a march at 4:30 p.m. from the University Center to President David Van Zandt’s office on the eighth floor of 66 W. 12th St.
“It’s about knowing how beneficial it’s going to be for our student employees in terms of getting benefits, better wages, and generally being on par with the administrative staff,” Broad said. “Right now the university unilaterally decides those wages, healthcare benefits, grievance procedures — this includes things like sexual assault — I don’t think I need to spell out how troublesome that is.”
The issue that seems to plague the organization most is the administration’s continued resistance towards their request to unionize.
“They’re not counting the ballots. They’re just trying to wait it out,” she said. “They’re not going to tell us how many people voted. The New School is supposed to be a progressive institution and right now they’re union-busting using the some of the most expensive corporate lawyers in the country, so they’re delaying counting the ballots. We are the voters, we are the student body, we deserve to know whether we got enough votes…it is extremely controversial.”
Zoey Carey, a candidate for a Ph.D in Sociology at the New School for Social Research, laid out what she believes to be the reality of the request.
“In reality, if you read the request for review, it’s the applicability of the Columbia decision, which actually challenges every single person’s right to be a part of the unit,” she said. “It’s basically an effort to squeeze the unit and make it really, really tiny.”
In the request for review, the university argues that course assistants, all undergraduate student assistants, and certain Masters and Ph.D student assistants are only temporary or casual employees and therefore should not be included in the bargaining unit.
By “Columbia decision” she means the the NLRB’s approval of the right to vote in a similar case involving Columbia University’s student employees in August of 2016. The case overturned a previous ruling with Brown University in 2004, which denied students recognition as employees at private universities. By effect, the case at Columbia gave student workers at private universities across the nation the right to collectively bargain with their employer.
While The New School argued that the Columbia case was not applicable to SENS-UAW, the NLRB declared otherwise when they gave the student employers the right to vote.
President Van Zandt told Faculty and Student Senates that the administration will provide updates as soon as they get more information.
Correction: Juliana Broad is an undergraduate. A previous version stated she was a graduate.
Photos by Trudy Hall