On Sunday, The New School provided the currently on-strike part-time faculty union with a final offer on compensation, healthcare, job security, and other issues pertaining to their contract. The union is expected to respond by Tuesday at noon.
In an email sent at 1 a.m. this morning, The New School administration detailed a revised offer in the ongoing negotiations with the part-time faculty union, ACT-UAW Local 7902, to community members.
Along with an outline of their proposal, the email, which was from Tokumbo Shobowale, executive vice president for Business and Operations, and Sonya Williams, vice president for Human Resources, included a deadline that the university is asking the union to meet.
“Because time is of the essence, the university asked the union to respond to this offer by 12:00pm on Tuesday, November 22,” the email stated.
The university’s actions during Sunday’s negotiations and their proposed offer have been widely panned by the union and other members of the community. The union issued a statement on social media Monday morning.
“The University’s team effectively walked away from the bargaining table,” the statement said.
The university denied this in its earlier email, claiming that they have provided the union with a comprehensive final offer.
“It [the offer] does not represent the university walking away from negotiations,” the email from The New School said.
In their response to the university’s email, ACT-UAW 7902 Local refuted this.
“The University’s team indicated that it intends to unilaterally implement its offer on Tuesday at 12:00 pm despite knowing that it doesn’t come close to meeting the key demands for which part-time faculty are on strike,” the union’s statement this morning read.
The union also indicated that during Sunday’s negotiations, the university’s team called this updated proposal their “last, best, and final offer”.
The part-time faculty union announced in a separate social media post that the strike will continue through Wednesday.
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