NYU tries to weaken the nation's first private University graduate student union by replacing its graduate students with casual labor in the form of...other graduate students: NYU has come under fire from its graduate students union for hiring grad students from Columbia University and calling them adjuncts, a tactic that the union says lets the university pay Columbia students less for doing work usually done by unionized NYU students. United Auto Workers Local 2110 filed a grievance with NYU's Office of Labor Relations Jan. 15, claiming that the positions being filled by the Columbia grad students, who make no more than $4,000 at NYU, should have been given to NYU grad students, who would be making between $12,000 and $17,000. ...While union representatives acknowledged that NYU has a right to determine who it employ, they said NYU is "outsourcing" teaching jobs at a greater rate than in the past. "This is the first time they seem to be doing this at this level and scope," said Sudhir Mahadevan, unit chair for Local 2110.