SVA faculty union weighs unfair labor charge over rewritten contracts

The faculty union at the School of Visual Arts said it is considering an unfair labor practice charge against the New York college after administrators changed language in the standard faculty contract without bargaining.

The union, SVA Faculty United, affiliated with the United Auto Workers, said in an Instagram post that the administration added new language on at-will employment and arbitration to individual faculty contracts.

“Nothing new in practice, but certainly an aggressive rhetorical escalation,” the union wrote of the new at-will employment language.

The union said the change should have been negotiated first. Under federal labor law, an employer generally cannot make unilateral changes to mandatory subjects of bargaining while negotiating with a certified union.

“We believe that SVA must bargain with us before making changes to aspects of our working conditions, including altering any language in our individual contracts, as such actions are a mandatory subject of bargaining under labor law,” the union said.

The union told faculty to sign the revised contracts anyway.

“However, we advise faculty to accept their offer — this will NOT waive any of our rights as union members, as we continue negotiations,” it wrote. “We are looking into whether to file an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge around this recent development.”

The post pointed faculty to their email and a planned town hall for more information.

The contract dispute follows weeks of tension over budget cuts at the 79-year-old college. On August 7, the union said the administration canceled courses and foundation blocks for the 2026-27 academic year without warning.

“Within the last week, SVA’s administration has cancelled a slew of courses and dozens of foundation blocks, regardless of the number of students enrolled, all without notice to the faculty—even department chairs have been blindsided. This is UNACCEPTABLE,” the union wrote in that post.

The union said it has proposed protections at the bargaining table.

“In bargaining, we’ve proposed common-sense protections that many of our unionized colleagues at other unionized schools already have, including minimum course loads, class cancellation fees, and a fair, transparent process for course cancellations when reductions are necessary,” it wrote.

The cancellations come as SVA runs a deficit. Urgent Matter previously reported the college posted a $16 million deficit for fiscal 2026 and projected an operating shortfall of about $18 million for fiscal 2027 in its accreditation self-study.

Hyperallergic reported on August 18 that the structural deficit stood at $22 million, the largest in the school’s history.

Lee-Sean Huang, a committee member of SVA Faculty United, told Hyperallergic that the administration cut the sabbatical program and matching retirement benefits and froze annual pay increases before negotiations began.

“The school has talked about reimagining how we deliver our mission,” Huang told the outlet. “Faculty want a seat at that conversation, not a memo about where the cuts landed.”

“Squeezing us weakens the SVA education itself and risks eroding the reputation that draws students to SVA,” Huang said.

In a July 1 all-staff email reviewed by Hyperallergic, interim president Christopher J. Cyphers said the school would introduce measures to reduce operating costs, citing federal policy, a 40% drop in enrollment since 2019, and a shrinking international student population.

Cyphers described one cause as “the ongoing dismantling of education and the arts by the federal government,” the email said.

Faculty and administrators have pointed to federal loan changes. The Graduate PLUS loan program, which let graduate students borrow up to the full cost of attendance, was eliminated July 1 for new borrowers under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Cyphers, formerly the provost, became interim president June 1, succeeding David Rhodes, who led the school since 1978. The move completed the founding family’s exit from an institution it sold to the SVA Alumni Society for $1 in a transaction that closed September 1, 2025.

The alumni society received $62.5 million in cash on settlement day, Urgent Matter reported.

Budget pressures have reshaped SVA’s offerings over the past year. The college is moving its MFA Art Practice program fully online and cutting per-credit tuition roughly in half, and it will end its master’s program in curatorial practice in 2027, Urgent Matter previously reported.

The union and administration have been in contract negotiations. In June, the union said it reached a tentative agreement on academic freedom protections, and in July, it put its economic proposals on the table.

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