Dozens of New School students and faculty marched down Fifth Avenue to university President Dwight McBride’s West Village townhouse earlier this month to protest the working conditions of student workers, Making Center staff, part-time faculty and other staffers.
The crowd gathered at the University Center around noon on Sept.14 to support several unions representing workers and teaching staff at The New School — including ACT-UAW Local 7902, the union representing part-time faculty, student workers and healthcare workers at The New School as well as adjunct faculty at New York University.
The march was organized by a New School labor coalition made up of the ACT-UAW, Local 802 AFM representing university musicians and music teachers, United Brothers of Teamsters Local 1205 representing Making Center techs and other staff and the New School chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
The coalition is demanding adequate and accessible health insurance, measures to protect disabled staff, greater compensation, and job security for part-time workers.
New School students, clerical administrative staff, librarians, IT support, Making Center staff, members of the Student Faculty Solidarity group, and other university employees all came out to support the movement as Local 802 AFM zealously played their instruments. Brooklyn Council Member Crystal Hudson, New School union representatives and members of the American Association of University Professors were some of those who spoke to the crowd.
Image by Marley Collins.
“Our students deserve a university that actually lives up to its social justice mission,” Annie Larson, part-time faculty unit chair of the ACT-UAW Local 7902 Union, chanted to the crowd in an Instagram video. “Shame on the New School for ignoring its progressive values while treating part-time faculty like second-class workers. Shame on the New School for not understanding that our teaching conditions are students learning conditions.”
The union and the university are in the process of negotiating a new contract. The current contract, which was finalized in 2014, was set to expire in 2019 but was extended and modified due to complications surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. The adjusted pandemic contract expired in August 2022 — sending the union back under the original 2014 agreement.
Larson said the university has refused to renegotiate the contract for two months. Additionally, employees have not received a pay raise in four years, she said.
Labor union leaders from across the city came out to support the part-time faculty’s fight.
Nelson Nuñez, the recording secretary of the labor union United Brothers of Teamsters Local 1205 — which represents New School staff including Making Center techs –, was one of the many organizers leading the protest in demand of a contract with fair compensation, higher wages, and secure health care coverage.
“Our message to McBride is to live up to the principles the university was founded on — the principles of justice, equality, progressivism,” Nuñez said in an interview with The New School Free Press. “[the administration] are woefully misrepresenting the university.”
Staff lay-offs were also enacted. The New School Free Press reported in October 2020 that 122 staff were laid off in an attempt to remove $5 million from the estimated $130 million COVID-19-related deficit for the following year.
“We [union members] decided to join together during the pandemic when the university decided to cut the throats of over a hundred workers and their families and lay them off as a way to save money, but not lay off any of the administrators,” Nuñez, of Local 1205, said.
Emily Li, second-year BA/BFA student and founder of the Student Faculty Solidarity group said she wanted the university administration to know that students will fight for their faculty’s right to fair pay.
“It’s just about making some noise, and making sure that the administration knows that there are students that are angry about this,” Li told the Free Press. “The whole concept is we pay money to this institution to house us, teach us, and provide us [with] resources.”
Image by Hope Thompson.
According to the union, just 4% to 7% of the tuition cost of a course goes to the part-time faculty member’s per-course pay.
Tamar Samir, an ACT-UAW labor union representative, teaches Parsons seminar courses and classes for the Center for English Language program at The New School. In an interview with the Free Press, Samir shared that her current hourly teaching rate is $137.30, which is one of the higher rates in the part-time faculty’s contract.
She added that adjunct professors earn less than their counterparts at NYU and Barnard.
“The purpose is to deliver a letter to President McBride and make clear that workers at the New School demand respect,” Samir said. “What is driving this march is to say all of the workers at the New School deserve respect and deserve fair compensation.”
Third-year Lang student, Ruth Donagher, said they were disappointed in the university’s treatment of part-time professors.
“I think it’s really sad that you have students and professors [who] are scammed by the school,” Donagher said. “I feel like the students and professors have faith in one another, and then [the] admin is letting down this really great and special community.”
Students have also expressed that they believe the school is straying away from its social justice-based roots. Nell Lyons, a second-year student planning on majoring in psychology at the university, attended the rally with a few friends to stand in support of the part-time faculty.
“I think it’s particularly ironic that at an institution like The New School, that prides itself on being so progressive, aren’t paying their teachers a livable wage,” Lyons said. “[It’s] pretty ridiculous.”
Image by Marley Collins.
Meanwhile, President McBride makes up to $1,480,000 a year and lives rent-free in his 11th Street townhouse, according to an Instagram post from Student Faculty Solidarity.
Since the march, negotiations have continued with The New School posting weekly updates.
In recent negotiations, the administration asked for a contract extension in exchange for a one-time bonus of “$200 per semester for each bargaining unit member who completed a teaching assignment between Spring 2020 and Spring 2022, including Summer 2020 and Summer 2021, with the understanding that the university would continue to bargain with the ACT-UAW over its compensation and other economic proposals.”
The part-time faculty union rejected this proposal twice without a counteroffer, instead maintaining the negotiation of a new contract by the end of the current contract. They delivered more proposals, and promised to deliver what they believe to be their last proposal on Sept. 26, but did not confirm it would be the last, as they want to reserve the right to write more proposals in the future.
“We’re confident we will reach an agreement that works for everyone,” New School Vice President for Human Resources Sonya Williams said in a statement.
Image by Marley Collins.
Corrections:
An earlier version of this article stated that the rally was organized by and for ACT-UAW Local 7902 and failed to mention the other New School unions who also organized the march. The article has been updated to include those unions and reflect the fact that the rally was held in support of all New School staffers involved, not just part-time faculty.
An earlier version of this article, using information provided by ACT-UAW Local 7902 Representative misstated the amount that New School part-time faculty make compared to their counterparts at NYU and Barnard.
The adjusted pandemic contract expired in August 2022 and placed the union back under the original 2014 agreement. An earlier version of the article did not include this information.