NYU faculty holding strike authorization vote

Unionized full-time faculty at New York University will cast ballots through Feb. 20 to decide if they walk out on strike after 15 months of bargaining with management. Strike authorization voting for members of the Contract Faculty Union at NYU began on Monday; it is the latest step in an escalating first contract campaign for the largest union of full-time, non-tenure track faculty at any private university in the United States.

The vote is being held less than two months after rank-and-file faculty members delivered a letter signed by dozens of workers to NYU leadership saying that they would ask union leadership to call for a strike authorization vote if the university's negotiators didn't move on key issues.  

 "Contract faculty deserve and need a strong first contract, and we, the undersigned faculty from schools and departments across NYU, will ask our bargaining committee to call for a strike authorization vote in the administration continues to delay," the letter said. "We commit to organizing our colleagues towards this end in order to reach a fair agreement." 

Jacob Remes, a professor and member of the CFU bargaining committee, said the union is now following through on that pledge against an administration that “has been dragging its feet.” 

“We listened to our members,” he said. 

The university failed to acquiesce to the union’s demands in two bargaining sessions early this year following a month long break in negotiations during the holidays, which led the bargaining committee to begin discussing a strike authorization vote after a Jan. 30 bargaining session. In particular, Remes said, the union was looking for management to move on issues key to the union like pay, protections for international faculty and initiatives to protect academic freedom that the union has proposed.  

"And they didn't do any of that,” Remes said.  "The next step that workers have to shake loose a fair settlement from the boss is to take a strike vote.” 

Sides far apart on pay

Professors first unionized with the United Auto Workers in February 2024 when 89 percent of faculty voted to join the union. Since then, pushing the university to guarantee sponsoring international faculty for green cards has emerged as a key sticking point in negotiations alongside pay and job security.  

Non-tenure international faculty have previously told The Chief that they feel their employment and residency in the U.S is precarious, especially under the Trump administration, if the university won’t sponsor them for green cards or other immigration pathways as it does for most tenured faculty. 

John Tirella, a spokesperson for NYU, said in a statement that the university has been urging CFU to utilize an impartial mediator for negotiations.  

“At a time of real financial uncertainty across higher education, NYU has made generous proposals that would place NYU’s unionized contract faculty at or near the top of what unionized contract faculty are paid at other institutions,” Tirella said. “Both sides owe it to NYU’s students – and to the faculty themselves – to try mediation now and work toward a fair agreement without unnecessary disruption." 

In a letter sent to faculty after CFU announced their intention to hold a strike authorization vote, NYU’s president Linda Mills and its provost Gigi Dopico argued that a strike would be “unwarranted” and “harmful.” The leaders chided the union for the “excessiveness” of its demands. 

Remes said that some distance remains between the union and management on wages and pointed out that management’s proposals would leave professors lower paid than postdoctoral researchers at several peer institutions. CFU has also demanded establishing a shared governance model for the university that the union feels would protect academic freedom  

 “With higher education under attack, we have repeatedly offered the administration opportunities to show they understand the stakes of this moment and that they stand on the side of academic freedom and free speech,” said Elisabeth Fay, a clinical associate professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science and member of the union’s bargaining committee. “Instead, they are seeking to dramatically curtail our participation in academic decision-making. Our students need to know that their education is in the hands of faculty experts, not over-reaching administrators, donors or politicians.”