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Employees of the New York Film Academy’s New York City campus have voted overwhelmingly to unionize, the new union announced Tuesday.
The Academy is a for-profit institution whose website lists campuses in New York City, Florida, California, Italy and Australia. Jerry Sherlock, an executive producer of The Hunt for Red October, founded it in 1992. As of fall 2022, the latest data from the U.S. Department of Education, it had 1,285 students.
The new, UAW-affiliated union—the Association of Teachers and Staff at New York Film Academy—says the New York City employees voted 149 to 3 to unionize during a mail-in vote last month and this month.
The union said it will represent 216 workers overall. “The new, wall-to-wall unit will include full-time faculty, part-time faculty, support staff, technical assistants and accompanists who are writers, artists, actors, photographers, dancers, singers, producers, directors and more,” a union news release said.
Laura Bailey-Wickins, a marketing coordinator at the Academy, said in the union’s release that “a fair exchange for these incredibly unique, real-world professional experiences our faculty and staff bring into and around the classroom should include a living wage, adjustments for inflation, some level of job security, ongoing professional development, growth opportunities and the ability to operate with reasonable workloads.”
Larry Lazar, the Academy’s general counsel, told Inside Higher Ed “we have always supported our staff and teachers and will continue to support our staff and teachers.”
