The NYU Union

I’ve written before about the attempts of NYU grad students to organize, which were set back by the NLRB. Of course, NYU can still recognize them if they choose, and grad students there have gone on strike. Lindsay has the report.

The argument made by research universities which rely massively on grad student teaching that because grad students are students, they’re therefore not workers is quite remarkably bad. (It’s like saying that because professional baseball is a sport, it’s therefore not a business.) But there’s any easy way to resolve it: universities can just pay students the same money for not teaching; after all, they’re not workers, so who will notice? Problem solved.