Mike Cavallaro On Building a Union (and a Community) at NYC’s School of Visual Arts

Late last month, the faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts formed a union to represent its 1,200 instructors. As reported by The Art Newspaper, the union joins others recently formed at peer institutions and was the result of two years of sustained organizing. Universities are increasingly in the crosshairs of politicians, with art schools particularly vulnerable, and Observer caught up with SVA faculty organizer Mike Cavallaro—who is a comic book writer and artist, in addition to being a teacher—to hear more about the new union.

Congratulations on your new union. How did it come about?

It’s normal for instructors at SVA to do hours of uncompensated labor preparing our classes, giving feedback on assignments, grading work, etc. During the pandemic, many of my fellow instructors and I were required to do a lot of extra work above and beyond our already considerable workload. Not only was there no suggestion of compensation to cover the additional requirements, but in fact, benefits such as 401(k) contributions and sabbaticals were suspended. Coming out of that, some of my colleagues saw the gains made as a result of the New School strike in 2022—where many of our own faculty also teach—and they started comparing our lack of agreement with SVA to that of faculty at virtually any other similar school in New York City. The most common question was, “How have we not done this already?” It was clearly time to organize.

What were some of the key issues around which you rallied your colleagues?

In addition to what I’ve already mentioned, the general lack of any security or continuity is a major concern for faculty. Many don’t know if they have a class to return to just weeks before semesters begin. Procedures for improving your own situation—be that pay or benefits or whatever—are unclear. There is literally no one to turn to if, as an instructor, you’re having some kind of dispute with the administration itself. HR works for them, not us. Who has our backs? No one.

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For me personally, it was the idea of continuing to work under a nonbinding agreement that I had no part in negotiating. In my professional career as a cartoonist, I wouldn’t set pen to paper without an enforceable contract, and I don’t work for anyone who isn’t open to respectfully negotiating terms with me. When presented with a “take it or leave it” deal, I leave. So why am I tolerating that here? What does that teach the future professionals in the classroom with me? It’s disrespectful to me after I’ve literally designed the course and a disservice to my students.

I know starting a union can be a delicate and complicated ordeal. What were some of the unique challenges surrounding this process at SVA?

The faculty at SVA was all very siloed. A majority of us teach only once a week, and with rare exception, we don’t congregate or really know anyone outside our own departments. For that matter, many instructors said they didn’t know anyone else inside their departments either. So, removing those barriers—building a community of support that spanned all departments and reached fellow faculty who were not previously aware of each other’s existence—was a titanic effort. As it went on, I began to feel that no matter what happened, even if we failed to achieve our union, creating that community would be transformative in itself. Now having won our vote, I think that sense of community will prove to be one of the most important things we’ve achieved.

You’re allied with United Auto Workers, which is probably the union that occupies the most space in the public imagination. Why are unions important for academic and creative workers?

Because we’re watching schools become the frontlines in a variety of battles that include basic labor rights but aren’t limited to that. At schools like SVA, with significant foreign student populations, these debates include topics of culture and immigration. Schools—which are both workplaces and centers for sharing cultural and educational experiences—are currently at the center of the larger tug-of-war the nation is engaged in.

United Auto Workers now represents educators at Parsons School of Design, New York University and Columbia University. What do you make of this wave of recent unionizations at universities?

I can finally give you a short answer. I think it boils down to “United we stand, divided we fall.” And education and labor rights in this country cannot be allowed to fall.

Campuses seem to have become a nexus for national politics, especially. Can unions like yours help universities avoid the headlines we’ve seen about Columbia and Harvard?

I’d like to think that. I certainly believe that those of us most closely engaged with the students have the best chance of appreciating and relating to their concerns. I always say teaching is a two-way street. It’s an exchange of ideas, not a firehose blowing in one direction. If you want to be an effective teacher, you have to listen. But also, avoiding the kinds of situations we’ve seen at Columbia and Harvard also requires the administration to show the courage and backbone to stick to the progressive ideals they often talk about in their emails and dispatches. If they can do that, they’ll find the faculty and students ready to stand together, and people who stand together win.

What’s next for your new union?

The traditional next steps are for the faculty to elect a bargaining committee from their own ranks to begin negotiating an enforceable union contract with representatives of the administration, so we’re engaged in the early stages of that right now.