The Socialist Party of Greater New York whole-heartedly supports the Graduate Student Union [GSOC/Local 2110 UAW] of New York University in their strike for fair union recognition. We ask that every New Yorker honor their picket lines and join the students and faculty at their rallies and meetings.

The graduate students are asking for nothing more than that the NYU administration recognize reality. There is a union of graduate students workers, the GSOC, formed and recognized in 2004. Even under the laws of this capitalist government, the administration must negotiate with that union. The administration flatly refuses to do so, safe in the knowledge the state will support them.

The real struggle of the graduate teaching assistants at NYU and every other university in this country is to reform institutions of higher learning that are, at their core, large corporations. For too long university students, staff, and faculty have bought the propaganda that they NEED corporate boards, sponsorship, bureaucracy and the tactics that come with it. They do not. The faculty can teach and the students can study without administration and ownership. All that the students have gotten from the business model of education is spiraling fees and fewer services. All the faculty have received are staffing cutbacks, lower pay, and the creation of poverty-wage 'adjunct' positions crowding out any chance for job security. Where is the money going? Where it always goes under a capitalist system: to the idle rich.

Students staff and faculty! Move your classes off campus, respect the picket lines, and you will find that your education could be cheaper, more accessable and more democratic. Only you can build an educational system that belongs to you, not some corporate board of millionares and bureaucrats.

NYU! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

--The Socialist Party of Greater New York, Local chapter of the Socialist Party-USA.

NYC Indymedia News Center

GSOC/Local 2110 UAW