ACT-UAW Local 7902 (Academics Come Together-United Auto Workers) is a labor union primarily representing part-time adjunct faculty at New York University and The New School in New York City. ¹ It is affiliated with the United Auto Workers (UAW).  ²

Background

ACT-UAW (formally Academics Come Together-United Auto Workers) Local 7902 is a labor union representing part-time adjunct faculty at New York University and The New School, a private liberal arts university in New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. ²

It also operates as SENS-UAW Local 7902 for The New School’s academic student workers and SHENS-UAW Local 7902 for its student health services workers. ^{3  4}

All workers in roles covered by the union’s contracts with the universities are required to pay 1.44 percent of their compensation in dues to Local 7902, whether they join the union or not, because New York lacks a right-to-work law. ^{5  6} Local 7902 collected $2,164,047 in dues and initiation fees in 2024, including $3,819 in agency fee payments from non-union members. ⁷

Activities

2022 New School Strike and Occupation of Administration Building

In November 2022, union members of Local 7902 went out on strike due to contact issues with wages and health care benefits.  ⁸ The strike was timed to disrupt end-of-semester exams and other events occurring at the end of the fall semester for The New School.  ⁸

While roughly 2,600 members of ACT-UAW Local 7902 voted for the strike, only a portion of the union’s membership was actively working at The New School that semester and thus roughly 1,500 instructors went out on strike. ⁹ In response, a coalition of parents threatened to file a class-action lawsuit against the university for “services not rendered” during the 25 days of the strike.  ⁸

The strike was supported by student activists who occupied the New School’s University Center building after university administrators announced that union members would not be paid while on strike.  ¹⁰ Even after the strike ended, students refused to exit the building and released a list of demands including  “a tuition refund for the instructional time lost during the strike, a universal A grading policy for the fall semester, a tuition freeze through 2027-28, the protection of international students and communal use of the university president’s house.” ¹⁰

The University Center would be occupied again in 2024 by students activists affiliated with the local Students for Justice in Palestine chapter as well as faculty that included members of Local 7902. ^{11  12}

2024 New School Strike

In 2024, several academic student workers of SENS-UAW Local 7902 went out on strike against The New School over pay and other contractual issues. ¹³

Several students criticized the union’s strike, with one being interviewed by the New School Free Press and claiming “It’s not worth it to be paying as much money as the New School is charging to not be learning stuff and not being in school.” ¹³

1. Gallo, Isabella. “Labor Unions at the New School, Explained.” The New School Free Press, October 17, 2023. https://www.newschoolfreepress.com/2023/10/17/labor-unions-at-the-new-school-explained/.
2. About.” ACT. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://www.actuaw.org/about.html.
3. “UAW: Student Employees at the New School-UAW.” SENS. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://sensuaw.org/.
4. “TNS Shens Eligibility.” ACT. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://www.actuaw.org/tns-shens-eligibility.html.
5. “Join NYU Adjunct Faculty.” ACT. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://www.actuaw.org/join-nyu-adjunct-faculty.html.
6. “Join Sens.” ACT. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://www.actuaw.org/join-sens.html.
7. “International Union United Auto Aerospace & Agricultural Workers Local 7902.” ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/562482558.
8. Freytas-Tamura, Kimiko de. “Strike Ends at the New School and Parsons School of Design (Published 2022).” The New York Times, December 11, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/nyregion/new-school-nyc-adjunct-strike.html.
9. El-Bawab, Nadine. “The New School Part-Time Faculty Will Stop Receiving Pay from University as Strike Continues.” ABC News, December 7, 2022. https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-school-part-time-faculty-stop-receiving-pay/story?id=94694917.
10. Donelly-Higgins, Emma. “Part-Time Faculty Strike Ends as the New School and Union Leaders Reach Tentative Agreement; Students Continue Occupation of University Center.” The New School Free Press, December 12, 2022. https://www.newschoolfreepress.com/2022/12/11/part-time-faculty-strike-ends-as-the-new-school-and-union-leaders-reach-tentative-agreement-students-continue-occupation-of-university-center/.
11. Rodriguez-Mora, Bianca, Rowan Cahill, and Bianca Rodriguez-Mora and Rowan Cahill. “TNS SJP Is Currently Occupying the University Center, Demanding Divestment and Financial Transparency from the New School.” The New School Free Press, April 22, 2024. https://www.newschoolfreepress.com/2024/04/21/tns-sjp-is-currently-occupying-the-university-center-demanding-divestment-and-financial-transparency-from-the-new-school/.
12. Irish, Anni. “First-of-Its-Kind pro-Palestine Faculty Encampment Continues at New York’s New School University.” The Art Newspaper – International art news and events, May 14, 2024. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/05/13/pro-palestine-faculty-encampment-new-school.
13. Olsen, Alexiah Syrai. “Two Strikes in Two Years – New School Students Express Frustrations.” The New School Free Press, March 6, 2024. https://www.newschoolfreepress.com/2024/03/06/two-strikes-in-two-years-new-school-students-express-frustrations/.