Big news! As we prepare to bargain over economic topics (e.g pay, benefits, and other important economic priorities), a majority of SVA faculty have signed onto our petition urging the school to work with us towards a fair contract that adequately supports our teaching. You can read the full petition here.

Now more than ever, it’s critical faculty and the SVA community join together around our shared goal of sustaining our school, our students, and that we build towards a contract that reflects the value of our teaching and the work we do in the arts in New York City. If you have not signed the petition, you may still do so.

RSVP to our next session on Monday, July 20th!
On Monday, we will present our initial economic proposals to the SVA administration and begin discussing compensation, healthcare, and other key benefits - RSVP to join the in-person session as an observer here. If you cannot attend, we’ll send out an update after the session, and you are welcome to follow the proposed articles on our online bargaining tracker.

Update from Bargaining Session #13

Last week, we held our thirteenth bargaining session with the SVA administration. We reached a tentative agreement on our VCAP article (Voluntary Community Action Program), which would allow faculty to voluntarily designate a portion of their dues to pro-labor political action efforts that our larger union supports. As many faculty have expressed, establishing a stronger collective political voice is very important in these times. We are also extremely close on a TA with Grievance and Arbitration, which would allow faculty to bring grievances to a neutral arbitrator. We expect to be able to agree on this very soon.

We also discussed the importance of an Employment Records article. This would ensure a contractual right for faculty to access full employment records and ensure that any record is accurate. We are also discussing receiving key demographic data on our unit as a whole from the SVA administration to help support our set of economic proposals that we are prepared to present at Monday’s session.

Feel free to respond with any questions or thoughts. You can watch our recent bargaining recap on our Instagram.

Best,

Merlin Ural Rivera, Humanities & Sciences
On behalf of SVA/FAC-UAW Bargaining Committee