The union representing academic student workers at The New School filed a complaint earlier this month alleging the university is negotiating in “bad faith,” meaning it has no intention of reaching an agreement anytime soon. 

The union ACT-UAW Local 7902, which represents part-time faculty and academic student workers on campus, filed the Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge against The New School after their bargaining session on Friday Feb. 9. The recent charge marks the third time the union has formally filed a complaint against the university with the National Board of Labor Relations (NLRB) since the SENS bargaining unit began renegotiating its contract with the university in August 2023. 

The most recent ULP claim is for bad faith bargaining, defined as negotiations in which one party has “no intention of closing a deal or following through on the negotiated commitment,” according to Harvard Law School.

Zoe Carey, President of Local 7902 and a Sociology PhD candidate in the New School for Social Research, said the union has yet to submit an affidavit to the NLRB to explain its reasoning for the most recent ULP, but shared some of the accusations they plan to detail with The New School Free Press.

“We’ll describe times where we brought proposals, and the university didn’t have [their own proposal], or how long it’s been since they’ve responded to our economic proposals or the fact that at some point last semester, the university refused to allow our bargaining committee members to join the Zoom,” Carey said. 

The university has directly disputed Carey’s last claim.

In a statement from Aug. 8, 2023, TNS Human Resources Vice President Sonya Williams wrote, “The Union declined the University’s offer to provide a link for all members of the University Community to view bargaining.” 

The university also alleged that the union bargaining committee members attempted to open the session remotely to SENS bargaining members and organizing New Student Workers Union (NewSWU) members, without providing enough notice to the university or access to the session for other New School constituencies. 

However, Carey said that the rhetoric being released does not match the university’s actions or the Union’s main concerns. “We want to see proposals and movement. Frankly, there’s no point in us meeting if the university isn’t going to be engaging with our proposals,” she said. 

The university and bargaining committee have agreed to hold off on economic articles — including pay agreements, healthcare benefits, and tuition waivers — until all non-economic articles, like academic freedom, have been discussed. But each party interprets what constitutes a discussion differently, according to bargaining committee member Aaron Berman.

Union members emphasize the word “discuss,” and believe that since all non-economic articles have been brought to the university, they should now be able to discuss economic ones. Meanwhile, the university negotiators’ interpretation of the rule is that they won’t discuss economic articles until all non-economic pieces have been agreed on, Berman said.

Carey also addressed the slow rate at which negotiations have progressed. If contract bargaining reaches a point at which both parties determine that further bargaining would be futile, an impasse can be declared, according to the NLRB.

If an impasse is reached, the university can then unilaterally install a contract. At that point, the union would vote to accept or reject the contract. An impasse was reached during the part-time faculty strike of 2022, and Carey suggested that negotiations may be moving toward the university making a case for an impasse.

The New School maintained that it too values fast negotiations. “We are working as quickly as possible towards a new contract that works for everyone and have three more bargaining sessions scheduled,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing good faith negotiations and reaching an agreement.”

Besides Friday’s charge of bad faith bargaining, the union has filed claims of direct dealing and unilateral contract changes. Carey said ULPs are one of the main ways for organized labor to hold employers responsible for the treatment of workers.

The university has denied the union’s accusations made via the ULPs. “We strongly disagree with the claims made by the union and look forward to presenting the facts to the National Labor Relations Board,” the spokesperson said. 

After they are filed, ULPs are reviewed and decided on by a Regional Director of the NLRB. In this case, by the Director of Region 02. If a claim is dismissed, a union can withdraw the ULP, or appeal the decision. If the regional director finds the charge has merit, both parties have an opportunity to settle, or the NLRB will give a formal complaint to the employer, after which the employer will likely post public notices of the NLRB’s findings at the workplace. 

The first claim filed by the union on Aug. 30 is for direct dealing, meaning an employer has attempted to communicate directly with union members about negotiations. According to the NLRB, employers may not circumvent a worker’s collective bargaining representative, in this case SENS-UAW. 

The union’s charge refers to an Instagram account, @knowournewschool, which, according to Carey, tried to gather information on union membership’s wants and needs for a contract during early negotiations. She said that the still active account is run by the university and posts updates about proposals and bargaining. The account polled followers about what they wanted out of a contract, an action that constitutes the direct dealing charge, according to the union president. 

The second charge, filed on Dec. 11, is for a unilateral contract change, meaning the employer instituted a change in the contract without the consent of the union. According to Carey, the charge refers to the university’s responsibility to provide accurate and timely information about union membership, and employment in all positions that can be unionized. 

“We were supposed to get a list of workers for the spring semester on December 1, and we requested it in bargaining, we requested it over email, and the university would not give us the list,” Carey said. She added that the delay of information impedes the union’s ability to organize,  inform members, and protect workers from possible contract violations during the semester turnover. 

According to Carey, this lack of information represented a unilateral contract change because they failed to provide the info on the agreed-upon date and decided to share information on a new and different schedule.  

The university held that it disagreed with all claims filed by the union. 

The NLRB has yet to decide on the three charges against the university. The NLRB Region 02 information office did not respond to requests for the status of those claims by the time of publication.