Backed by supportive cheers of passersby and MTA buses honking in solidarity, a group of roughly 20 organizers, faculty, union members, and students gathered outside The New School’s University Center for NewSWU’s Rally for Neutrality on Wednesday, May 10. The rally was held to ask the university to sign a neutrality agreement with NewSWU, a step that would protect non-academic student workers from retaliation from the university during their unionization process.
Union organizers emailed The New School on Monday, May 8 to officially request that the university enter a neutrality agreement with the non-academic student workers as they work to unionize. The letter was jointly signed by NewSWU, the collective working to unionize non-academic student workers, and ACT-UAW Local 7902, the union which NewSWU would become a unit of.
“When an employer, in this case, the university, signs on to a neutrality agreement, it’s essentially them saying that they respect our democratic process to elect and form a union and that they’re not going to run any kind of anti[-union] campaign against us. Essentially, it’s just a signal of goodwill on both ends,” Aarya Kini, a NewSWU organizer said. “Having a neutrality agreement in place [helps to] guarantee that the [unionization] process will be efficient and mature on both ends,” she added.
University administration responded to NewSWU’s request for a neutrality agreement on Wednesday, May 10 at 7:36 p.m., about two and half hours after the deadline of 5 p.m. on that date provided by NewSWU. NewSWU organizers announced in an Instagram post that they will meet with university administrators on Wednesday, May 17 at 2 p.m. to formally begin a conversation about signing a neutrality agreement.
“[By asking for neutrality,] we’re giving the university the opportunity to learn from their mistakes from last semester where they union busted for over a month [during the part-time faculty strike],” Hannah Landesburg, a NewSWU organizer said while speaking at Wednesday’s rally.
Members of the NewSWU collective also publicly announced their intent to file with the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) for a union election in an Instagram post, on Monday, May 8. Once they file, the NLRB will review their petition for election, and choose a date and location they feel is appropriate for it to be held.
“Regardless of what the university’s response is [to the neutrality agreement], whether they say yes or no or don’t get back to us at all, we will file for an election [soon],” Kini said. If a simple majority of non-academic student workers who vote in that NLRB election vote in favor of unionizing, NewSWU will be recognized as a union.
“Since The New School refuses to pay me a living wage, I’ve had to go on Food Stamps and Fair Fares to afford to [go to The New School]. I’ve had to email professors saying that I have a dollar in my bank account and I can’t come to class today because I can’t take the train,” Landesberg said at the Rally for Neutrality. “I shouldn’t have to do that, and none of us should have to do that to live. The New School needs to accept our neutrality agreement and raise our wages and give us what we demand when they bargain with us,” they added.
“Non-academic student workers are coming together to formulate a union faster than any other UAW union has on this campus,” President of Local 7902 Zoe Carey said at the Rally for Neutrality. “We know that you’re going to win this. If New School isn’t just going to acknowledge that you have a right to form this union, we’re going to go to the Labor Board, and the Federal Government is going to say, ‘you have to recognize this union.’ We’re going to win.”