Nearly five months after New York University failed to renew recognition of its graduate student union, the organization voted to go on strike starting Nov. 9 to protest of the university’s decision at a meeting on Monday.
The union will strike until NYU administrators agree to negotiate, union spokesperson Susan Valentine told The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Yale President Richard Levin said he is confident that the NYU student union will proceed with the strike.
“It looks like there almost certainly will be a strike there,” Levin said.
In June, NYU announced that it would not renew its contract with the group, although the university did offer a pay and benefits package similar to the one under the expired contract. The agreement between NYU and the graduate student union — which was signed in 2002 –was the only collective-bargaining agreement of its kind in the U.S., The Chronicle reported.
The National Labor Relations Board ruled in 2000 that NYU teaching assistants have bargaining rights based on the National Labor Relations Act, but the body overturned the decision in 2004 on the grounds that teaching assistants are students and not employees.