Until August 2020, we — forty men and women employed as sergeants who work in New York University’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) — were the only hourly workers employed by the University who did not have a union. That changed on August 17th when President Hamilton and the greater NYU community were informed that an overwhelming majority of us had decided to form “Security Professionals of Greater New York (SPGNY)” to represent us for the purpose of collective bargaining.
However, thus far, NYU has rejected SPGNY’s requests for voluntary recognition and made clear it has no intention of entering good faith negotiations with our union. Instead management has signaled that it intends to commit significant financial and other resources in an attempt to thwart our decision to unionize.
We believe this is an unconscionable way for management to respond to ANY of its employees, let alone ones who, quite literally, risked their lives when they continued to show up to do their jobs every day in the middle of the nation’s epicenter of the pandemic. Sergeants continued to show up despite NYU’s shortage of PPE. Sergeants continued to show up despite NYU initially prohibiting us from even wearing our own face coverings at work because of (in management’s words) the “bad optics” of staff in masks. Sergeants continued to show up to protect others despite not being given any basic protections for ourselves. Ultimately, 20% of NYU’s sergeants tested positive for COVID-19; a handful of others suffered inexplicable serious conditions — like blood clots — despite never testing positive for the disease.
And now, to add insult to actual injury, NYU’s “thank you” to us is to try and stop us from having an organization which will, among other things, advocate for our health and safety. We sergeants are seeking support from the University community and beyond in our effort to persuade NYU to treat us with the basic level of compassion and humanity we deserve and to respect our decision to form SPGNY.
You can read more about what sergeants do at NYU here and you can read more about our efforts to unionize here.
Thank you for your support.