A new online resource for information about the grad-student worker strike has just surfaced. go to  http://www.facultydemocracy.org/

Also, a huge thanks to however put together the indy media strike watch.

i'm so sick of this nyu strike bullshit!
just a bunch of over privileged kidz having a little strike to defend their own back yard! better fight to end nyu and get free education for everybody! we got more important issues to discuss and challenge here than this white crap!

Even if the striking NYU folks are white or are from relatively affluent backgrounds (and I don't know if they are or they aren't)it is an important strike.If they can't make it on what they get paid then what chance does someone have if they come from a less privileged background.
We need folks from the working class engaging ideas and bringing in organic knowledge from their communities. How could that happen without people getting a living wage for it? Besides which a person's class alliances are in flux during their college years which opens up possibilities of even more priveleged folks to leave one class and enter another in the interest of radical social change.

What blows my mind is the thought that these students see themselves as oppressed. They are among the LEAST oppressed people in the world. Go to school someplace else where they can give you what you want. PhD candidates casting themselves in the same mold as "workers" is an insult to everyone who has sacrificed their well-being in the cause of genuine workers rights actions. You people are poseurs. Intellectuals playing proletarians in a street theatre.

Bartelby is correct. Somehow I dont think the grad students not striking would bring about an "end to NYU" and "free education for everybody." Idealism is one thing, but Burn needs to get his head examined.

I'm so glad that Indymedia has experts like David to decide for the rest of us who the "real" workers are. You don't have to fit into some malcontent leftist's fantasy version of what a "worker" looks like to deserve and fight for a union to represent you--a union is for anyone who has a boss, and TAs at NYU most CERTAINLY have a boss. His name is John Sexton, president of the university, and you coun't ask for a meaner boss. The more unions fight for and win contracts, the better off workers everywhere are.

Wow, this is so exciting! I'm a High School senior in Westchester and I'm about to decide which college I should apply for. There seems to be so much activism going on at NYU.. I'm so thrilled! I guess I should apply there because that's exactly what I'm looking for - a college with a lot of political activism. I'm interested in White Studies. And after class I like to go to the coffee shop and talk about politics with fellow students. I'm a little bit affraid they might not accept my application because I'm not used to be turned away. But since I'm pretty much a straight-a-student and my parents are wealthy maybe I shouldn't be to affraid.. don't you think?

Guys keep your fist up fighting for that social change!

Billy :-)

While I'm not in favor of anything or anyone going down in flames, I agree with the observation that nyu is classist in the first degree. And there are some distinctions between grad students working as ta's and genuine workers. To begin with, grad students have CHOICES -- they don't have to be in grad school. Of course, not doing so would increase the chances they would end up with actual jobs -- i.e. become workers -- and THEN they would understand what life is like when you don't have choices. That is when workers' rights achieve legitimacy, that is when people need to fight for decent wages, benefits, and job security. Imagine getting turned down for admission to a grad program at NYU -- why, you might then have to apply to one of several hundred other grad programs around the country, and you can even shop for the school that offers you the highest stipend for your teaching or research assistantships. Until grad students get out of the ivory tower and onto the REAL street, they should have the decency to refrain from telling real workers anything about anything. I'll say it again: using your disatisfaction with a grad stipend at NEW YORK UNIVERSITY to position yourself as "oppressed" is beyond pitiful. It's contemptible, base, and, yes, classist.

You've just recited the NYU administration's talking points verbatim.

So be it. Takes one (classist) to know one. The ivory tower radical routine has been tried before -- remember the 60s? The rads who populated the academy (and they did) are today the new classists. Alas, tis the same story with most revolutions. And there is no reason to think that the current crop of faux-prole-elitists won't do the same when they come into their own age of power.

Dave:

To quote an old Marxist saying, "There's nothing wrong about being a class traitor, the issue is, which class are you betraying?" If the striking TAs really are the upper-class types you describe, more power to them. Besides, by the time this is over they'll have learned a few good lessons.

Assuming (charitably) that you're the working-class stiff of your public posture, you're still a class traitor, of the wrong kind now, because your denunciation objectively serves the Sexton class. But of course I'm being charitable, because your naive view of the working class as innately, genetically revolutionary is rarely shared by the workers themselves. The technical term for your posture is "Ouvrierisme." And there'll be a quiz next week.

man this is so fucking classist. look at that pseudo-academical showdown that's going on in this forum.
people are trying to put other people down by showing off their "knowledge" and constructing the most fancy sentences.
very white that whole rationalizing!

A perpetuation of the smug condescenion of elite rads -- the working does not see itself as revolutionary. No, it does not. No argument there, and I'm pretty sure nothing I've written has suggested that is the case. The fallacy is that the elites need to teach the working class that revolution is in their best interests. In other words, the poor dumb proles just don't know what's good for them, and by striking the ta's will not only prevail in their own just cause but simultaneously serve as enobling role models for the underclass. As to my own history, not that it is of much importance: born and raised in working class Chicago neighborhood. Father was a machinist at U.S. steel for 25 years, dropped dead of a heart attack at the plant. Attended Chicago public schools. Then two years at a junior college. Then Northwestern University. Then an MBA at Stanford. Then seven years on Wall Street. Then dropped out and traveled through sub-saharan africa for a few years. Now a storefront financial counselor in Chicago for people who have fallen prey to usurious money lending schemes. Last year I earned $18,000. This year will be less because of funding cuts for my program. So, no, I'm not really a class traitor. Never claimed to be. I consider myself a deserter. I'm not trying to fight the big man. Just trying to be of some small value to the people who come to me for help. What about you? What's your story. Did you pick up your vocabulary in Alphabet City?

...real working-class folk talk in grunts and swing from trees. How's that for class arrogance?

So we have two points for discussion:

1) That one's actions may or may not serve progressive or reactionary interests regardless of one's actual position on the social ladder (imputed class-consciousness). I'll grant you that. I think we should grant it to the TAs as well.

2) That the TAs are preaching to the lower classes. It's been known to happen but I haven't seen it here. From John Sweeney, maybe, but not from the TAs. Hey, even their rhetoric isn't that radical.

As to my personal life. Father a stallion, thought he could break into the upper crust of Kentucky society through sports, the dream of every ghetto horse. Ended up in the glue factory. I will avenge him.

Hi,
Even if the striking TAs are as classist and bourgeois as David is saying, and maybe they are, unionization is going to open up rather than further close off possibilities for working class folks. Without a union clearly only people with considerable "help" can expect to be able to pursue their studies in this way.
Like it or not the left, in terms of who is able to participate in activism regularly, is made up mostly of people in academia, employed by nonprofits, or people with deep pockets. This is especially true in New York where the cost of living is so high it prevents working folks from participating in the way we want. The rising cost of living combined with the shift to a post industrial economy, again especially in NYC, makes it tough for working class people to participate. Partly because of the time and effort work takes up and partly because people are still adjusting their politics to a new economic reality.
bartelby

david has a pretty solid point. he doesnt make that much money, therefore anyone who is more "priviledged" than him really shouldnt be taking political action. maybe if every leftist making more than $18k would just start watching tv instead we could finally have a damn revolution.

I'm confused. Are the "criticisms" above based upon the language that the grad student union is using (I haven't read any of it so I wouldn't know) or is it just because they're NYU grad students?

Personally, I feel anyone has the right to go on strike. It's good for the undergrads to see a strike close up and be effected by it. Anytime anyone strikes and other people are aware of the strike, it's a good thing. It's a reminder that there is a way to address those in power. Not all unions are good. Some are really shitty. There used to be a lot of strikes in this country. And they were by poor working class people. I feel that strikes are contagious. When people start seeing other people asking for something, it can empower them to act on their own behalf. I'm not saying NYU is going to light the way, I'm saying anyone striking has the power to do that. This time NYU grad students are on the picket line.

Unfortunately many people don't know what strikes are and what people hope to accomplish through striking. (As I understand it, the NYU grad students just want negotiations to begin. They don't have any specific demands yet, just to negotiate a new contract.) I had the good luck to have the head of the teacher's union be my high school English teacher, and we read lots of Steinbeck. Hopefully some undergrads will come out of this experience with some realizations about how they're being educated (ie by people who can't negotiate with administration). The obscene amount of money they pay for school isn't going to the person teaching their class....so where is it going?

1. Class, what percent of NYU students are white?

a. 92%
b. 72%
c. 57%
d. 44%
e. none of the above

2. And what percentage of NYU graduate students are white?

a. 89%
b. 69%
c. 43%
d. 39%
e. none of the above

*Answers here:  http://www.nyu.edu/ir/demographics/

Student financial demographics? The numbers are not readily available to this poster. Remember, however, that *many* students go into deep debt to get an Ivy education. Some win scholarships, some obtain financial aid. Some work part-time to cover the gap.

What percent come in on daddy warbucks' tailcoats? Don't know. Come back here with a believable source and then we'll talk. Until then...

Stop undervaluing and judging your fellow human beings. Getting into a good & expensive school doesn't mean being white or rich or both.

* Answers: 1=d (44%), 2=c (43%) :: Bonus essay (up to 200 points): Explain why you thought these numbers should have been higher.

I happen to be one of those "elitist" NYU phd students many of you are talking about. I suppose in order to have any legitimacy, I must present to all of you some sort of evidence of my working class credentials, which is simply ridiculous, but I will indulge you. I am the son of poor immigrants, I came to this country as a kid, and grew up dirt poor. I've worked my ass off and paid my way through my undergraduate education, and had the good fortune to be accepted, after several years of trying, to a PhD program. I hold three jobs at the moment, because NYU's stipend for its graduate workers gives us a wage that is near the poverty line. This is why most of us work other jobs, while teaching, grading, attending required lectures, and holding office hours (all of which takes more than 20hours a week).

Most of my peers are not wealthy, are on their own, and work multiple jobs. Because we have gained access to higher education, we are not legitimate leftists or workers? Excuse me, since when was a condition of being a true worker being uneducated?

The discourse of the left on this board is pitiful, and it speaks volumes about why the left in this country is so weak and fractured, practically non existent. The PhD students at NYU, particularly those in the humanities, are some of the most politically committed people I have ever met. They are activists and scholars, they are very conscious of their own privilege, and they consistently dedicate themselves to the pursuit of social justice, both in their daily lives, in their activism, and in their scholarly work. This is true of my peers in the History department, as well as those I know in Sociology, American Studies, Anthropology, and English. Why don't you stop by the picket line and talk to them before making assumptions? The current "strike" is about securing health care, and a decent wage, rights that I know all of you feel are universal.

Please don't insult people you know nothing about.
thanks.

I support the NYU strikers and I have been following it online and I have to say I am very proud of them; they are heroes. Of course, I have yet to see a comprehensive article on the issue covering the grad students' demands, the atmosphere at NYU, and why the grad students don't like what they have there beside the issue of $19,000 stipends being too impecunious for NYC.
David and other have valid points, but just because David chooses to use his Stanford MBA to make $18,000 offering credit advice to low income people in Chicago doesn't give him or anyone the right to deny others their opportunity to be enlightened, aware, active, and doing something. Are NYU students engaging in a different political situation than someone trying to organize at City College or Starbucks, yes, but aren't all these stuggles intertwined, I think so. Trust me, the last thing the elite class or aspiring working-class wants is to send their kids to NYU or
Harvard to get a real education that questions capitalism and the social ladder. The strike is doing both implicitly and even explicitly, depending on your view.
NYU is probably top-10 in the country in almost every discipline and these students certaintly are risking something not only to organize for their own benefit, but to cement real progressive politics and structures in academia that is increasing liberal as in neo-liberal. It is interesting to note that the whole disruption there stems from the Bush controlled 2004 National Labor Relations Board reversing a previously ruling and now allowing private universities to NOT recognize grad student unions no matter what. Right on NYU students!

The next issue of the Indypendent, NYC's Indymedia's newspaper, will do an in depth story and center spread on the NYU strike. We will attempt to get in issues that other news outlets are not talking about and parcel thru the misinformation about who NYU grad students are and what NYU as an institution has become.

The paper will be available on the strike line.

I work with a former diversity recruiter for NYU (ssshhh, not an official position) and he/she says that NYU was soliciting alumni for funds specifically for financial aide because they could not meet the financial aide needs of their students. So, they have some serious financial aide needs at NYU and they're not using the ridiculously vast sums of money they're sitting on to meet those needs. Also, a lot of NYU students are commuters. You think of them as rich kids from Conneticut when a good amount of them are working, living with their parents and riding into Manhattan from another borough.

As for the class/race compositions of the Ivys, NYU's behind. The Ivys have made some serious strides because they have soooo much money. They have endowments in the eleven digits, that's right, dozens of billions of dollars. I work for an organization that helps underprivileged kids of color get into prep school and then the Ivys. Princeton's solution has been offering more generous financial aide packages and having a lenient leave of absence policy. Harvard uses money, programming, recruiting - they even claim to try to compose suites in the dorms based on diversity. I can only tell you that the kids in my program are happiest at these two schools.

The systems are far far far from perfect. But as people on this board are quick to call higher education bourgeois beyond reproach, I don't know that they've ever seen an immigrant family, or parent struggling to stay above the poverty line, burst with pride when their child is offered a spot at an Ivy League university. As elitist as these institutions are, they represent a great opportunity to the lower class people you claim to side with.

I think people might be projecting onto NYU grad students that they're all academic masturbators getting degrees in things that are useless for getting jobs, and can afford to do so because they're rich. You have to go to grad school to get degrees in medicine, in law. Like it or not, that is something people aspire to do, and we do need doctors and lawyers (though we would prefer they be radical and not corporate both kinds need degrees to practice;)). Getting these degrees should not be so prohibitively expensive that only rich people can afford to get them.

Having a grad student union with a good contract is a step in the direction of making these degrees more attainable.

To those who are coming to the site for the first time or who are attracted to our coverage of NYU, one thing.

Anyone can publish anything on this website. So what happens is people can say anything and they are not held accountable. What one says online, they wouldn't dare say face to face.

So it is easy to talk shit about elite grad students. But it is easier not to go to the picket line and talk with these lovely folks and understand where they are coming from. Its easier to write bullshit over this website.

Sometimes there are good conversations over this website. Sometimes left wingers who are all politics and mouth and no action, and right wing trolls needlessly get us mad.

This email is not directed to anyone in particular, just a word to newcomers to the site.

Be the media.

the amount of hate on this thread and on indy lately is astounding. People are not evil based on the color of their skin folks. get a grip. the demographics post is funny because it points out the deep deep hatred in these posts, that information is easily available and yet ignored in order to ingratiate some class/race war pornographic fantasy.

OK,
Let's have a look at the undergraduate (full time and part time) enrollment at NYU:

White (Non Hispanic): 8,533
Black (Non Hispanic): 995

Now go to www.nyc.gov and check the demographics of this city.

Now how is that?!

In regards to the above post -

there could be more grad students of color if the grad students had a union, and weren't forced to rely on money outside their income to survive. Do you possibly think the conditions of the grad students has something to do with that number? How do you think that number could change smarty pants?

please explain why you think the number of whites vs blacks is the relevant number, as opposed to other races?

why is the racial composition of the undergraduate body important to the grad student union?

in fact, what does racial composition of the school in general have to do with supporting the union anyway?

as soon as you start to make any of the arguments your race obession could be trying to imply, you will see that it goes nowhere. give it a try:
"At NYU there are more white undergrads than black undergrads, so...."

I guess the question is-are the strikers including demands for a greater degree of affirmative action or do they see eye to eye with management on that issue? There is a never a wrong time to demand affirmative action, and no affirmative action policy thus far has been really adequate.

Actually, I do not think NYU limits its admissions to those living in NYC, so NYC's demographics are largely irrelevant. Most of NYU's applicants come from the United States of America, which has the following approximate demographics

White 75%
Hispanic/Latino 13%
Black 12%
Asian 4%

NYU has a total of about 20,000 undergrads.
995 are black
38 are native american
2,842 are asian
1,403 are hispanic
8,533 are white
5,601 are unknown
800 are "international"

So, assuming that there are no blacks or white among the 5,601 unknowns (which is ridiculous, but I will do it anyway to prove a point), whites make up about 45% of the student population whereas they are 75% of the U.S. population, and blacks make up about 5% where as they are about 12% of the U.S. population and so on. What does this demographics lesson teach us. Pretty much nothing - someone could, based on this, actually argue that blacks and whites are underrepresented at NYU, which of course is bullshit.

The only thing it teaches us it that you are willing to lie and misrepresent facts to push your narrow racist little ideologies and your hard on for race/class war.

"Now how do you explain that?"

NYU has a total of about 20,000 undergrads.
995 are black
38 are native american
2,842 are asian
1,403 are hispanic
8,533 are white
5,601 are unknown
800 are "international"

So basicaly for every Black student there are 8 or 9 white students.
This may be close to proportional with the population across the US. Actually it is skewed toward white folks. When you consider who is overrepresented in the prison population, in the unemployed population or below the poverty line the true nature of these numbers is revealed. Have the strikers been demanding more aggressive affirmative action at NYU. If not,why not?
Are they on the same side of the issue as the institutions that preserve white supremacy or do they truly break with the people they are carrying out the strike against and unite with the most oppressed or do they just want their piece of the action? They wouldn't be the first.
A demand, any demand on the part of the strikers for affirmative action would be a step forward.

Choose your battles. Been involved in struggles for about ten years, and it is all too common to see a movement lose momentum when its activists are challenged for not including this issue or that struggle, or for not being in solidarity with other movements because we didn't join their boycott protest, or be called "racists" for not including that person's race group in everything we do!

People, this is about the current grad students at NYU winning a labor movement. That's number one. They are *not* wrong because they haven't taken up your *additional* struggles. Let them win this without clouding the issues and burdening them with things that are not their *fault*.

It is so very easy to throw abstract numbers and notions around in a home-spun dialectic that misdirects blame and anger: "the largest group at NYU is white people, and look! blacks are not represented proportionately. The grad students are engaged in struggle, but ignoring our struggle, therefore it must be the white grad students' fault! Let's make the grad students *wrong* for not also taking up our cause."

Take up your own cause. Invite others to join. Do not blame others whose cause does not also consider yours. To do so is divisive, and tears everybody down.

Why should I give a fuck about the union of the most privileged people in this city, when I have to sell my ass on 42nd to survive?! I care about other issues.
In fact, I think NYU/Columbia and all this bourgie ass crazy expensive elitist institutions should be torn down and, instead, free education should be provided for all.
Why did u enroll at NYU? I could've gone to CUNY instead. But fact is that all u people still wanna take advantage of the possiblity to get a degree from a "good" university.

NYU isn't even that good it's just expensive. If it wasn't in the middle of manhattan on prime real estate it would be just another mediocre overpriced private school. It doesn't suck but I wouldn't exactly call it "good".

So lemme get this right. If your not a person of color your not 'working class?' The race card has no place in this discussion.

Are grad students workers? Yes. I ain't at NYU, im at a public as a grad student worker and I still have to eat out of dumpsters every once in a while. Does that make me working class. Heck you judge for youself im not sure, but I still deserve the right to associate with my fellow workers--that is what a Union is.

While I do not attend NYU, I am a fellow graduate student and am interested in this strike. It seems important to realize that struggles have effects that move beyond their particular location. Regardless of the demographic make-up of the graduate students at NYU, many graduate students around the country are facing similar challenges. Not all graduate students are from rich backgrounds, nor white, and all do not have CHOICES. Yes it is true that we could quit school and get "real jobs," which for me would be busting my ass in a restraunt without any hope of future security or healthcare while trying to bring up my 2 year old son, or I could stick it out in hopes that I might be able to acheive some glimmer of financial stability. It doesn't seem like a "choice" when your living it. Furthermore, universities around the country, even at state institutions (like the one I attend) rely on grad students to do much of their work - at times teaching over 50% of the students. Yet we are often NOT represented by any union and are subject to the pay and health benefits that the universities see fit to give us, which is very often very little. I currently make less then I would if I did quit school and started working in a restraunt, for doing much more and more agonizing work. As well, my health insurance is not fully covered and I receive no benefits, or even reduced-cost benefits for my son. The demographics of the students at NYU is not really the issue. The point is that any form of unionizing as well as worker solidarity is important.