GSOC demands unreasonable for NYU
March 9, 2015
One day away from a potential strike, it has become clear that the demands of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee are both excessive and unjustified. The union’s revised demands are “100 percent health care, support for student workers with families, tuition remission for working PhDs and fair annual raises.” These changes would affect over 1,000 graduate students who are NYU employees.
GSOC states: “NYU can afford this: for example, just half of one executive level NYU administrator’s salary can fund healthcare for all of us who currently receive no support.” Using NYU President John Sexton’s salary, which for 2014-15 is $1.5 million, would mean health care would cost the university approximately $750,000. However, the employer contribution for health care to an employee in New York state is $4,865. Using this figure, this would equal $4.8 million for 1,000 graduate students. While not exorbitant, this is still not true to the union’s argument.
But what is exorbitant is the total cost of the package the union is seeking. Tuition remission for working doctoral students would cost the university $49,728 per student in lost income. This would add up quickly.
The argument made by the GSOC is that NYU has a $399 million surplus, making the figures above feasible for the university. While the past year has been successful for NYU, this number is an outlier, not the norm. In 2013 and 2012, NYU’s surplus has been $112 million and $50 million, respectively.
In his email to the university, NYU provost David McLaughlin warned about the financial implications such a deal could have on the university. “We cannot, however, agree to an unreasonable settlement that our university cannot afford,” McLaughlin said.
Union members and students alike have scoffed at this. While NYU could, in theory, afford the loss in revenue using this year’s numbers, in previous years the total would put the university in the red. Ultimately, there is no guarantee that NYU will have sizable surpluses in the coming years, making these costs unsustainable.
But remove projected costs for a minute and consider a larger question. What entitles these students to raises? For all intents and purposes, when viewed in the spectrum of what they do — teaching and conduct research — these students are entry level. When compared to adjuncts, associate professors and tenured faculty, teaching assistants are handsomely compensated — they receive the same rate that adjuncts are given per teaching contact hour. This doesn’t quite back up the argument that graduate students are unappreciated.
With a package that offers tuition remission and a stipend, union members have little to complain about. GSOC should accept the university’s offer and settle negotiations before embarking on a needless strike that will hurt both students and NYU.
Opinions expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of WSN, and our publication of opinions is not an endorsement of them.
A version of this article appeared in the Monday, March 9 print edition. Email Anthony Sganga at [email protected].
CC • Mar 10, 2015 at 6:41 am
Wow, you clearly did zero relevant research for this article. Do you seriously think GSOC would make up a number and a false claim about relative costs and publicize it widely? What world do you live in where that would be a reasonable strategy for any organization? All of the demands made by GSOC were priced out by the NYU administration as part of negotiations. Those cost estimates were, of course, what GSOC based that claim on, and are several orders of magnitude smaller than your calculations for the reasons mentioned by previous commenters: almost all Phd workers already have fully-covered health care (but not Masters workers), and similarly, almost all Phd workers already have complete tuition remission (the only group it’s demanded for in GSOC’s revised position), like at practically every other top-50 Phd program in the country, such that “tuition” for Phd students is basically a made-up concept so universities can claim remission as compensation. Not to mention that even a cursory look at online NYU health insurance information would have made it clear that your NY state “employer contribution” number is completely inapplicable, and I have no idea where you pulled that tuition number from. Your simplistic deductions based on completely illogical assumptions are embarrassing and are what really “hurts both students and NYU” by making an NYU education (assuming you are a student) look pretty worthless, at least as far as developing critical thinking skills. It also makes WSN look bad for publishing a piece so clearly unbased in fact as to be completely irrelevant to the conversation. I clicked on this link thinking I would find an interesting argument presenting a point of view I hadn’t considered, but it seems that was too much to ask, and I was just wasting my time.
Tess • Mar 10, 2015 at 12:49 am
As mentioned above, most PhD students already receive tuition remission (which is thus already budgeted for by NYU), and the union only wants to address the limited number of PhD students in several schools who do not. Similarly, health coverage demands would simply close the gap between student-workers who receive coverage (already budgeted for by NYU) and those who do not.
Further, the work being done by students at Poly, for example, (those, arguably, most in need of a raise) is in no way entry-level work and is worth far more than the $10 they currently receive or the $15 of the most recent offer.
“With a package that offers tuition remission and a stipend, union members have little to complain about.” The author is clearly not familiar with the situation of the “union members” as only (some) PhD students receive such a package, which leaves out a large portion of the union.
Sydney • Mar 9, 2015 at 6:33 pm
The university’s fiscal irresponsibility should not come at the expense of graduate students. NYU has a track record of spending students’ tuition on services that will not improve the quality of education. As a student at NYU I am consenting to the school’s administration, but this does not mean I will be complacent and ignore a clear mishandling on my campus. NYU can afford to improve benefits and pay for working graduate students so they should.
Ryan • Mar 9, 2015 at 3:57 pm
I think you forgot to mention the billions the university spends and plans to spend on expansion.
Zach • Mar 9, 2015 at 1:38 pm
The author is apparently unaware of the fact that most PhD students at NYU already do not pay tuition. The author also misrepresents the relationships between adjuncts and teaching assistants. Indeed, the reason the two groups are compensated similarly is because NYU sought, between 2009 and 2013, to dissolve the category of teaching assistants into its vast pool of adjunct labor and thus avoid having to deal with GSOC at all. Perusing the WSN’s archives during this period, especially the spring of 2009, would have revealed as much. Instead the author seems content to regurgitate administration talking points which are absurd on their face, such as the administration’s spurious claims of fiscal constraint at a moment when they are unapologetically buying second and third homes for high ranking university officials.