I am a student at New York University. Sadly, they won't except some of my internal organs as payment in full for my tuition, so I take out student loans, get a few bucks from financial aid and whatever's left over I pay out of my pocket. NYU is a good school I guess, but they are greedy bloodsuckers that not only drain the pockets of students (and their parents) but the pockets of their professors as well. According to the website for the NYU Adjunct Fan Club, a website sponsored by students in support of their professors, the average amount of tuition collected per course (all of NYU): $33,750. The average amount of tuition paid to adjunct per course (all of NYU): $2,700. Nice, right? On their website you can also see a side by side comparison of the adjuncts are demanding and what the university is prepared to offer them. There are HUGE differences. Check them out: www.nyuadjunctfanclub.org
If they don't come to an agreement by Wednesday, they will strike! I hope the adjuncts give them hell. I think it is disgraceful that NYU uses 70% of their teaching staff on a part-time basis.

Have you ever been a temp worker? It sucks. You are human capital and you are treated as such. The only reason that it doesn't progress to slavery is because slavery is now illegal and because most huge corporations wouldn't want to make that kind of a commitment. When you own slaves you have to see to it that their welfare is provided for. With temps, they are on their own. Hiring part time workers has become very popular in the last few years. I know plenty of people that are working multiple part time jobs or are registered with several temp agencies. It is a shitty way to start your day by calling a list of agencies that can never remember your name and asking for work. My own personal experiences have left me needing a hot, sterilizing shower. For example, I decide to be proactive with one agency and call them to see if they had any work for me for the following week. I had just finished working on a two month assignment which brought them much money and I figured we were on good terms. This lady answers the phone and as I repeat my name three times she finally says, "well what do you want?" "Well," I reply, maintaining my composure although I realized what a huge mistake it was calling but it was too late to hang up,"I wanted to see if you had any work for me for next week." "Well did I call you?" She replied like I just cleaned her toilet with her toothbrush. "No," I said. "Well then I don't have any work for you," and with that she hung up the phone. A few days later, one of her clients requested me and she called me up. "Hi, Sweetie. It's *****. Are you available tomorrow?" I, the Scarlet Pimp, had never felt so pimped out in my life.

Temporary staff are treated that way because they are a dime a dozen. Then you have big retail companies like Walmart and Eckerd's and all they do is hire part time workers with a salary cap of around $6 per hour depending on your local minimum wage requirements. How are you supposed to feed a family like that? There is a woman that works in the Eckerd's pharmacy in my neighborhood. She also works in Wendy's and I think I saw her working in this large crafts store before they closed down. Of course part time means no benefits and without having to provide some kind of health plan these companies save TONS of money. Its not illegal what they are doing, but it is SUPER SLEAZY.

So I must ask what kind of message is NYU sending to its students? Well, they aren't teaching us anything we haven't figured out on our own. Huge corporations and institutions care more about the dollar than anything else. So why the hell are we bothering to get a degree at all? So that we can be the manager of WalMart instead of the check out girl? We already know that the economy sucks and there are no new jobs being created. Excuse me if I'm not elated about the 308,000 jobs that were supposedly created last month. How much do you want to bet they were mostly part-time or temporary positions and don't offer anything in terms of benefits?

I am also sick of every other commercial on the TV and radio telling me to join the army, air force or navy. My favorite goes something like, "After graduation, Mary sent her resume to every business in town. Neither of them replied." Join the Army!

So if the economy sucks and I have just spent 4-6 years in college to get a degree in Accounting and my only other alternative is working in McDonald's I should run off and join the army in the middle of a gruesome war that I oppose for ethical reasons? So that I can risk my life for the Holy Trinity of Dick Cheney, George W., and Donald Rumsfeld? So that I can survive after a year and expect to go home to the loving arms of my family and then be told I can't but they will get back to me when they decide? No, I think not. Pass me the hamburger flipper and point me towards the fry basket. Maybe Bush is ruining the economy so that more people will be forced to join the military as a way of feeding their families. We need more soldiers and a draft will be a hard sell to Congress. If people are forced into military service for economic reasons then you have killed two birds with one stone. You have created jobs and you have the personnel required to invade the rest of the Third World.

I hope the adjuncts at NYU kick ass because this is not just a fight for more wages and benefits and whatever else. This is a lesson to all of their students that there is still the possibility for change. The little people can make a stand. If they lose and NYU fires all 2700 of them, then they can still find some solace in knowing that the world sees that NYU is a trader in the false commodity of temporary employees. Soon parents and students will have to decide if NYU is the best place they could spend $30K.

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