New York University’s administration and graduate student union have, after more than a year of stalled negotiations, reached a tentative contract that would raise pay and expand health care and other benefits.

NYU and the university’s Graduate Student Organizing Committee announced the breakthrough, five-year agreement on March 10 after a late-night bargaining session that ended only hours before graduate students were set to walk off the job.

Under the contract, graduate students will receive annual increases to their pay and stipends of at least 2.5 percent, while hourly employees at the university’s Polytechnic School of Engineering in Brooklyn will see a bump from $10 to $15 per hour in September and to $20 per hour by the end of the contract.

The university will also pay 90 percent of health care premiums for all otherwise uninsured union members, provide free dental coverage and establish new family health care and child care benefits.

Graduate students hailed the contract as a big win for the fledgling union, which represents more than 1,200 teaching, research and graduate assistants. NYU voluntarily recognized the union in December 2013.

“At first they offered us nothing,” said Ella Wind, a member of the union’s bargaining committee. But, she said, “with this contract, everyone gets something.”

The Nation, March 11
The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 11
Capital NY, March 10