United Automobile Workers of America, Local 2110, New York University Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC) Records
Call Number
Date
Creator
Extent
Extent
Language of Materials
Abstract
The Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC) represents graduate and research assistants at New York University (NYU) and is affiliated with the United Auto Workers Local 2110. GSOC was the first graduate employee union at a private university to successfully negotiate a contract. This collection contains materials pertaining to the GSOC organizing drive from 1998 to 2000, and the negotiation of GSOC's first contract with NYU in 2001. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence. Other materials include promotional flyers, newsletters, handwritten notes, surveys, their websites, and labor education materials.
Historical/Biographical Note
The Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC) represents graduate and research assistants at New York University (NYU) and is affiliated with the United Auto Workers Local 2110. GSOC was the first graduate employee union at a private university to successfully negotiate a contract, in effect from 2001 to 2005, which included major improvements to stipends, benefits and employee rights. In 2004 the National Labor Relations Board reversed the legal precedent of the Brown University decision, which required private universities to negotiate with graduate employees. NYU administration then refused to bargain with GSOC after the expiry of the first contract, leading to a six month strike in 2005-2006. In 2013, following a GSOC petition to the NLRB to reverse the Brown University decision, the NYU administration announced that they would resume collective bargaining with GSOC on the withdrawal of the NLRB petition. In 2015, they signed their second contract. In 2020, that contract expired and the union was on strike in Spring 2021. The contract was ratified on June 6, 2021, after nearly a year of negotiations and a three week strike.
Arrangement
This collection is arranged into two series. Materials in Series I are arranged alphabetically by topic.
Series I: Records, 1996-2003
Series II: Archived Websites, 2009-ongoing
Scope and Contents
This collection contains materials pertaining to the GSOC organizing drive from 1998 to 2000, and the negotiation of GSOC's first contract with NYU in 2001. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence, especially paper copies of emails sent on NYU graduate student listservs. There is a substantial amount of correspondence from the Graduate History Student Association and GSOC listservs, and from organizer Jane Rothstein. Other materials include promotional flyers, newsletters, handwritten notes, surveys and labor education materials. There is also research material about graduate student organizing at other universities in the United States.
This collection does not contain material pertaining to the 2005-2006 strike, or GSOC's campaign for recognition following the NLRB reversal of the Brown University decision.
Web based materials date from 2009, focused on press coverage of the union, healthcare initiatives, solidarity statements and resolutions, bargaining information, contract negotiations and strike materials from 2020-2021, and information on resources for graduate student members.
Subjects
Organizations
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection, created by the United Automobile Workers of America, Local 2110, New York University Graduate Student Organizing Committee, was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; United Automobile Workers of America, Local 2110, New York University Graduate Student Organizing Committee Records; WAG 285; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; United Automobile Workers of America, Local 2110, New York University Graduate Student Organizing Committee Records; WAG 285; Wayback URL; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Adjuncts Come Together - United Auto Workers (ACT-UAW) in 2003. The accession number associated with this gift is 1950.177.
http://www.2110uaw.org/gsoc/index.htm was initially selected by curators and captured through the use of The California Digital Library's Web Archiving Service in 2009 as part of the Labor Unions and Organizations (U.S.) Web Archive. http://www.makingabetternyu.org/ was added in 2013. In 2015, these websites were migrated to Archive-It. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website.
Accession numbers associated with GSOC Google documents are 2020.027, 2021.009, 2021.013, 2021.048, 2021.068, 2021.077, 2021.085, 2021.088, and 2022.048.
Accession number associated with GSOC social media are 2021.077 and 2024.066.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu, (212) 998-2630 with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Take Down Policy
Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.
If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.
If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to the special.collections@nyu.edu.
Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.
About this Guide
Processing Information
There was no original order apparent when the collection was received from the donor. The materials were placed in archival folders and boxes. Materials were grouped by topic, and folder titles were assigned by the archivist.
In 2020, Series II was updated with additional descriptive information as well as the addition of recently crawled websites. In 2021-2024, additional websites were added.
