In the ear­ly morn­ing hours yes­ter­day, New York Uni­ver­si­ty (NYU) admin­is­tra­tion and grad­u­ate stu­dents, rep­re­sent­ed by the Grad­u­at­ing Stu­dent Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee-Unit­ed Auto Work­ers (GSOC-UAW) Local 2110, reached a last-minute agree­ment to avert a strike by grad­u­ate stu­dent instruc­tors. Nego­ti­a­tions had been ongo­ing for over a year and GSOC had been vocal about its will­ing­ness to strike if a fair con­tract could not be reached. March 10 had been set as the start for a ​“lim­it­ed strike” that would last through Fri­day, coin­cid­ing with the university’s midterm exams.

GSOC was look­ing for pay increas­es, tuition remis­sion and health­care cov­er­age for its mem­bers. Details of the con­tract will be released lat­er today, but nego­tia­tors were able to come close enough to make a ten­ta­tive agree­ment and ward off the strike.

“We feel that it’s a major vic­to­ry to get things from the uni­ver­si­ty that they were say­ing weren’t pos­si­ble a year ago,” Clau­dia Car­rera, a Ph.D. stu­dent at NYU, told NYU­Lo­cal.

Grad­u­ate stu­dents have occu­pied a gray area in acad­e­mia: Are they stu­dents or employ­ees? Often they inhab­it both worlds, attend­ing class­es and work­ing — usu­al­ly teach­ing under­grad­u­ates and/​or con­duct­ing research — part-time. While uni­ver­si­ty admin­is­tra­tors often argue that they are prin­ci­pal­ly stu­dents, grad stu­dents have been fight­ing for recog­ni­tion as employ­ees, as well as all the ben­e­fits and pro­tec­tions that come with that status.

GSOC has been on the front­lines of the aca­d­e­m­ic labor move­ment for near­ly two decades. After form­ing in 1999, they won a case in 2000 in front of the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board (NLRB) that set a prece­dent for allow­ing grad­u­ate stu­dents to orga­nize as work­ers. Although the case was over­turned in 2004 thanks to an NLRB appoint­ed by Pres­i­dent George W. Bush, GSOC con­tin­ued to fight for recog­ni­tion: in 2005, when NYU refused to nego­ti­ate anoth­er con­tract, GSOC went on strike.

That strike was beat­en back by NYU admin­is­tra­tors, but GSOC con­tin­ued to fight for recog­ni­tion. In Decem­ber 2013, NYU agreed to rec­og­nize the union, despite not being legal­ly required to do so, in part because it appeared cer­tain the school would lose the UAW’s pend­ing NLRB appeal in front of an Oba­ma appoint­ed board. For the last year, GSOC and NYU have been in nego­ti­a­tions for a con­tract, the first since 2005.

In Fall 2014, the GSOC branch of the Aca­d­e­m­ic Work­ers for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Union (AWDU) won a land­slide vic­to­ry to the lead­er­ship of NYU’s grad stu­dent union. AWDU, which began in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia sys­tem, does not sep­a­rate work­place from social jus­tice issues in their bar­gain­ing, argu­ing for increased com­pen­sa­tion and stronger rights for undoc­u­ment­ed, LGBTQ, sin­gle moth­er and oth­er stu­dents all at the same time. AWDU mem­bers say this, and their com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy in nego­ti­a­tions, allowed them to win GSOC’s elec­tions and con­trol nego­ti­a­tions with the university.

The grad stu­dent union­ists say they were strong­ly backed by the larg­er NYU com­mu­ni­ty, with over 100 fac­ul­ty sign­ing peti­tions in sup­port of GSOC, and under­grads — who the admin­is­tra­tion had tried to influ­ence in an email on Fri­day, say­ing they would bear the brunt of an increase in grad stu­dent wages through tuition hikes — demon­strat­ing at sev­er­al points around cam­pus. ​“Our under­grad allies pushed us over the fin­ish line” with their show of sol­i­dar­i­ty, NYU-AWDU said in a statement.