Graduate Workers at NYU Are on Strike for Living Wages and Cop-Free Campuses Members of the graduate workers union at New York University listen to a speaker on April 30, 2021. Graduate Student Organizing Committee | United Auto Workers / Twitter By On Monday morning, after ten months of stalled negotiations, more than 2,000 graduate workers at New York University walked out of their classrooms and into the streets. These Graduate employees — who earn just $20 an hour on top of their stipends — perform much of the research and teaching that allows NYU to extract billions in tuition and fees from its undergraduate students. Among their demands for a new contract, workers are asking NYU for an increase in wages commensurate with the increasingly outrageous cost of living in New York City, access to childcare for working parents, and better healthcare. They are also, importantly, demanding an end to the collaboration between NYU (which is one of the largest landowners in the city) and the New York Police department, as well as the removal of all NYPD officers from NYU campuses, showing that labor unions can and must play a real role in the struggle against racist police violence and oppression. While the University has so far remained recalcitrant, an agreement on mediation is already in the works.