PADDY WAGON POLITICS

Academe, Jul/Aug 2006 by Nelson, Cary, Buck, Jane

The conversations were not the usual ones overheard in police vans transporting prisoners. We exchanged names and disciplinary specializations. One of us ended up describing a current research project. And above all, in the universal manner of academics, we annotated and interpreted every element of our experience as it was happening. What was the attitude of our arresting officers? I low was the rush, flaking paddy wagon itself constructed? What would happen to us next?

The two of us-incoming and outgoing AAtIP presidents-were in separate paddy wagons after sitting in the street in the shadow of the arch in New York's Washington Square, blocking tntffic and then arrested and charged with disorder!) conduct. It was the first time AALIP elected leaders were arrested in the line of duty, hut it is not the first instance of AAtIP activism. We were acting in the tradition of the AAUP's May 2(XX) demonstration at Hennington College. Now we were in New York on April 27. 2006, to |oin hundreds of students and faculty protesting New York University's extraordinary decision to cease negotiating with GSOC-UAW Local 2110, a graduate employees union it had already recognized and with which it had already negotiated a contract. Just before we stepped onto the street with fifty-five others, a delivery truck earning office supplies slipped hy. Then traffic was halted. Manhattan gave us a festive setting for our exercise in academic solidarity. Bright pink tulips topped every comer plot, underplanted with blue hyacinths. Delicate pale green light filtered through spring leaves onto arrestees and police officers alike.

Much of academic life is relatively solitary. liven when we collaborate, the restorative power of true political solidarity is rarely in evidence. Being part of reflective, carefully considered mass action can he a healing and inspiring experience. It was certainly so as we gathered to put MUP bodies where AAUP words have been.

The day had started with a bracing rally at Judson Memorial Church. Amplified by echoing stone walls, a series of speaker-from New York City comptroller William C. Thompson to UNITE HERE president John Wilhelm to AAUP president-elect Gary Nelson-gave speeches, along with half a dozen graduate employees. A strong letter of support from New York senators I Hilary Clinton and Charles Schumer was read aloud.

But the highlight of the rally was the roll call from the audience of departmental votes in favor of continuing union representation. The NYU administration likes to dismiss the movement as a history and Hnglish department phenomenon, but when computer science, economics, physics, and sociology called out their strong prounion votes, it was clear support for the union permeated the campus. In presidential nominating convention style, each discipline joined the roll call count, greeted by cheers and applause. Banners and placards were unfurled, new and faded, as representatives from other graduate employee unions signaled their participation. Graduate-student members of the Kutgers MUP union stood behind a dark red banner, a memento of their successful recognition campaign, Then we marched to the arch that NYU has appropriated as its symbol.

City police officers were uniformly cordial. Some joked with us. and a few congratulated us on our action. After all. they, too, are union members. One officer, an NYU graduate, apologized for the conduct of his alma mater. Still, the plastic handcuffs were uncomfortable, especially after a couple of hours. The paddy wagons were uncomfortably hot. the expierience of being frisked was eerie, and the police station was bleak enough to remind us what extended incarceration might entail, hut we were there together, and that made all the difference.

The two of us joined this job action because AAUP support must mean standing with our comrades in every phase of their struggle. We joined this action because this fight may prove the key academic labor struggle of our generation. We joined this action because graduate employees and faculty are full partners In the AAUH If the NYU local wins this campaign, it can help contingent teachers everywhere secure tair wages, health care, and just grievance procedures. The administration and the union are setting patterns that will prevail throughout the country. So we joined hands in the honorable tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience to signal that our cause is one.

Cary Nelson, now president of the AAUP, was president-elect when this article was written. Jane Buck was president.