The New
School Unit represents the New School part-time faculty.
The unit
settled and ratified its first contract with The New School in November, 2005.
We won significant job security provisions including replacement rights for
annual faculty, multi-year contracts, course cancellation fees, longevity
increases, recall rights, improved access and employer subsidies for the New
School health plan, 10% employer pension contributions by the end of the
contract, and many other significant gains.
Organizing our union at the
New School came out of the formation of Adjuncts Come Together (ACT-UAW) by the
adjunct faculty of NYU. In March 2003 a petition for representation was filed
with the NLRB. It was eleven months before a union election took place, in the
face of protracted employer opposition. In spite of this, the part-time faculty
of the New School voted to have a union. The New School administration filed
objections to the election, which in May 2004, were found by an Administrative
Law Judge to have no merit. Our union was certified by the NLRB in September
2004, with the university only coming to the bargaining table after a successful
events boycott that fall.
We began negotiations with the university in
October 2004. Even with our certification from the NLRB the administration
refused to acknowledge the right of the faculty of Mannes, the New School for
Music, to be members of our union. On the eve of a strike deadline, reached
agreement with the New School on October 31, 2005, including recognition of the
rights of Mannes faculty to be included under the contract.
