New York University’s Darkest Secret: Underpaid Undergrads

This past weekend, a department with over 100 Teaching Assistants at New York University (NYU) met to discuss their concerns regarding their jobs: inequality in the workplace, lack of communication from management, and an ever-elusive pay raise that had been promised for over two years. After continuous issues with transparency and false promises, they decided to take decisive action.

Their demands were simple. They were asking for something that should be considered the bare minimum: a show of empathy from upper management and transparency regarding a pay-raise eternally trapped in Human Resources limbo.

During that meeting, not a single one of my peers had realized that it would come to this. But now, we have become the first large-scale undergraduate strike in the history of the United States.

We wanted to know when we would hear back, what specific departments were responsible for what, and above all, proof that our supervisors had even been fighting at all for a pay-raise on our behalf. We wanted clear messaging from the University about when we would get our promised raise in response to our rapidly rising workload. Their answer? “Your concerns have been heard.”

For the last two years, my peers and I have heard the same message given to us week after week, month after month. Every time we asked, the University gave a new excuse. Too many of us were sick and tired of hearing “we hear you, and we understand you.” Finally, as a team and as a family, we were forced to make a difficult decision: to go on an indefinite strike.

To make it clear, as fellow undergraduates, we love our students. We have put our blood, sweat, and tears into creating a classroom environment where students feel welcomed and accepted. We have created, developed, and evolved coursework to fit the students’ needs in every semester, including a complete transition to virtual learning amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. But enough is enough.

As students ourselves, to see our tuition rise at least two thousand dollars from year to year, increasing even during the peak of the pandemic, there was nothing else we could do. Many of us are juggling between multiple jobs, borrowing money from friends and family, and overall, adding to our already crippling student debt.

That is why we needed to go on strike. We had to prove to the University that they needed us. The courses we teach are only as good as the passion and dedication of their Teaching Assistants. From the very beginning, the response from the community has been overwhelmingly supportive. Everyone, from former and current students to adjunct professors and lecturers, immediately voiced their support for our movement. One statement from a former Teaching Assistant: “If only my peers and I had this courage when we were here.”

New York University, much like so many other private universities, abuse their power. They’re willing to raise tuition year after year with no change in financial aid, in a city where food and rent prices only ever increase. Beyond everything, New York University actively finds ways to underpay the student workers they take for granted. There has been no one to call them out or to fight them. Until now.

As Teaching Assistants for New York University, there is so much expected of us. We are expected to treat our jobs as our lives, and be so incredibly grateful for the laughably insulting wage they pay us. I can speak for so many of my coworkers when I say that we love our job. We love interacting with students, and we love teaching. But there is too much expected of us, and nowhere near enough compensation.

We all want this to end as soon as we can. We all want to go back to work. Our students are our first priority, but we simply cannot undergo this injustice any longer. We will strike until the University is willing to have an open and responsive conversation with us, and we will not back down until they acknowledge us.