The graduate program stands or falls on its capacity to attract the very strongest students, its capacity to give them the finest training, and its capacity to place them in the best academic or other scientific jobs. Building and sustaining a strong program is a fiercely competitive enterprise.
Excellence is irrelevant.
This makes the UAW at best a benign intrusion in our academic lives, and at worst a serious impediment to our efforts to develop the strongest possible programs. In what follows I review some of the issues that warrant concern. Since NYU will be the first University at which an election for graduate assistants is held at the direction of the NLRB, it is hard to know what might be the consequences. For example, the NLRA permits unions the right to bargain over virtually all terms and conditions of employment, and there are no exceptions for academic or educational matters. Although it is impossible to know what could actually happen, the potential problems lead me to conclude that, on balance, UAW representation of graduate students would be harmful to students and faculty in the sciences, and to the University as a whole.