Electeds back NYU adjunct faculty's push for paid family leave

Adjunct faculty at NYU campaigning to win paid family leave received support last week from 34 New York City lawmakers who argue that the added benefit would help both academic workers and students at the university. The workers have been pushing for around a year to secure a side letter to their ongoing collective bargaining agreement with the university that would grant around 3,000 adjunct faculty paid family leave, said David Palmer, the adjunct faculty union’s unit chair. 

Palmer said that without the paid leave, faculty are forced to choose between their positions at the university and caring for sick family members, bonding with their newborns or stepping in when a family member in the military is deployed abroad. If a faculty member takes leave from their job for a family matter, it can mean losing out on reappointment to key classes or losing a position at the university entirely.

“These are decisions that adjunct faculty face on a regular basis,” Palmer said. 

The letter sent to NYU president Linda Mills was signed by over two dozen members of the City Council, the borough presidents of both Manhattan and Brooklyn and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.  

“NYU’s failure to provide paid family leave (PFL) to the thousands of workers who make up its adjunct faculty reflects a clear misalignment between those values and the treatment of a significant portion of its workforce,” the letter reads.  "Without PFL, adjunct faculty at NYU face significant financial, physical, and emotional hardship, and are forced to make untenable choices between caring for sick family members or bonding with new children—and maintaining their income."

A spokesperson for NYU did not respond to a request for comment. 

Under a New York State law enacted in 2016, all eligible part-time and full-time workers in New York State are guaranteed up to 12 weeks of job protected paid family leave while being paid two-thirds of their standard wage. But several categories of workers are excluded from benefit, including most academic workers, religious employees like ministers or rabbis and golf caddies.  

Since it was first passed, the law has been expanded to cover more workers and United Auto Workers Local 7902 that represents the NYU adjunct faculty has pushed for a bill that would expand the paid family leave benefits to cover academic workers. But efforts to expand the legislation to cover the adjunct faculty have so far been unsuccessful.

In the meantime, NYU's academic workers have sought to pressure the university to grant them paid family leave. The union delivered a letter of its own last year to university leadership calling for the benefit and 1,100 adjunct faculty members have since signed a petition in support of the move.

The union has held several negotiating sessions with the university in an attempt to secure an agreement separate from their ongoing collective bargaining agreement, which expires in 2028, to win leave benefits, Palmer said. He added that the benefits are a “common-sense right” that has increased in salience for faculty in the years since they agreed to their current collective bargaining agreement in 2022.

“For NYU the cost would be minimal. It's just about the will to do this,” he said.  

The letter was signed by 31 members of the City Council, a clear majority. Council Member Tiffany Cabán, who spearheaded the letter, recently rallied with adjunct faculty.

“As the daughter of a retired union elevator mechanic and a childcare worker, I understand on a personal level the urgency of the NYU Adjuncts Union’s effort to win paid family leave and I am proud to support it,” she said in a statement.