NYU contract faculty reach deal after 2 days on strike

After more than a year of negotiations and numerous all-night bargaining sessions, NYU contract faculty walked out on strike at 11 a.m. Monday to cheers and the jangle of noisemarkers. 

Chanting for a fair contract, faculty, students and supporters began a winding picket line outside NYU's John A. Paulson Center in lower Manhattan minutes after the strike deadline passed. More than 950 non-tenure-track professors – about half of NYU’s full-time faculty – are represented by Contract Faculty United-United Auto Workers, and in February, members voted by 90 percent to authorize a strike.

Just two days into the strike, CFU and NYU announced that they had reached a tentative agreement for a first contract featuring the highest minimum salaries for unionized contract faculty in the nation at $91,000. The agreement also includes 3.5 percent raises each year, a $1 million family care benefit fund as well as professional development and healthcare benefits, according to NYU.

In a statement, Wiley Norvell, NYU's chief communications officer, thanked both bargaining teams as well as the "constructive role" played by Mayor Zohran Mamdani administration and said that striking faculty returned to work on Wednesday.

“The University has worked in good faith to recognize the important contributions these faculty members make to our community, and to ensure a sustainable and fair agreement," he said"This deal provides meaningful raises and comprehensive benefits that will improve the lives of every member."

Seeking stability

Striking faculty on the picket line told The Chief that New York City is uniquely unaffordable, and supporting themselves, much less a family, is difficult. 

“A lot of contract faculty make wages that are, according to official government statistics, low income. Basically not enough to support a family of two or three in a city like New York,” said Johann Jaeckel, a professor in the economics department, who’s been involved with the union since its beginning. 

“We are bringing in a big chunk of tuition revenue for the administration and very little of that shows up on our paycheck,” Jaeckel said. 

Dr. Kaia Shivers couldn’t afford the city on an NYU salary when she first started working at the university in the liberal arts department more than a decade ago. At the time, she commuted from New Jersey, but in the years since she’s had to move to more affordable accommodations in Philadelphia.

But Shivers says she knows some of her peers that have to commute from even farther afield, undertaking five and six hour commutes from places like Vermont and West Virginia.

As chants of “What do we want? Contracts! When we do we want them? Now!” rang out behind him, Andrew Sanfratello, who teaches mathematics, spoke about his love for the subject and his passion for education. But he said that he often has to take on extra work to supplement his NYU income.

Greater pay would allow him to more fully engage in the work of teaching – and to live the “American dream.” 

“It means the ability to not have to stress about where the next paycheck's coming from,” Sanfratello said. “And I can actually focus and spend the appropriate time to prepare for my students.”

Sanfratello's is a common refrain among faculty – many echoed the idea that they cannot best serve the students if they are worried about their next paycheck or trying to juggle multiple jobs. 

“If you are supposed to be teaching the younger folk, you know, how to be brilliant and expand,” Shivers said, “you can't do it fully if you're not sustained.”

In a March 20 letter to NYU President Linda Mills, more than 60 elected officials expressed their support for the union and urged Mills and the university to consider a fair contract. 

“As one of the largest private employers in our city, NYU has a responsibility to the people of New York and an obligation to treat its workers with dignity and to respect their collective voice,” the letter said.

Classes continue

Austin Kelley, an expository writing professor at NYU, said salary compression is a big issue for him. He’s been at the university for 15 years and still makes the same amount as a recent hire would. 

“It's very hard to live with a family in New York City at the salary levels we've been at,” Kelley said. 

The university said classes will continue during the strike, and that it has been preparing for the possibility for weeks by “identifying current faculty to instruct additional courses, as well as hiring substitutes.” 

But many students themselves had joined faculty on the picket line – there to support on principle or to show up for specific beloved instructors. 

Emma Murphy and Esme Roberts, two first year students, said that they were there to support several of their instructors who were out on the picket line, including a beloved writing professor. 

“We're here because our writing professor is on strike and we absolutely adore her and think she deserves the world,” Roberts said. 

“I am hopeful that the strike won’t last very long,” Murphy said, “but our education isn’t worth it without them.”