Chapter chair Sigmund Shen, LaGuardia Community College, gives an eloquent and impassioned argument to continue the struggle and not lose what we gained when we voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. Read his article in the Aug 2 issue of In These Times.
Honoring the union vote to strike at CUNY. Don't take the money.
Adjunct Faculty Assembly
BUILDING COMMUNITY and POWER, WINNING EQUITY and RESPECT
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Celebrating Defeat. The proposed CUNY contract is no victory — a just settlement will come only through struggle.
Celebrating Defeat, by James Dennis Hoff
Jacobin magazine, 7.19.16
On Monday July 11, members of the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, which represents more than twenty-seven thousand faculty and staff at the City University of New York, received an email from the American Arbitration Association asking them to respond to a short and straightforward question. “Do you accept the proposed PSC-CUNY contract: Yes or No?”
Though the question was simple, making the right choice was much more complicated.
Celebrating Defeat, by James Dennis Hoff
Jacobin magazine, 7.19.16
On Monday July 11, members of the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, which represents more than twenty-seven thousand faculty and staff at the City University of New York, received an email from the American Arbitration Association asking them to respond to a short and straightforward question. “Do you accept the proposed PSC-CUNY contract: Yes or No?”
Though the question was simple, making the right choice was much more complicated.
Celebrating Defeat, by James Dennis Hoff
Monday, July 11, 2016
Why I Am Voting "No!"
Rita C. Tobin
One morning
in September 1974, having just earned my M.A. in English and begun my long trek
to a Ph.D., I borrowed my sister’s car and drove to Lehman College in the
Bronx, where I had just been hired to teach freshman composition. It was my
first teaching job: I was 24 years old
and had no training as a teacher. Yet,
with the support of my CUNY colleagues and a few good textbooks, I muddled
through that first semester. I was paid
$1,500 for my efforts, the standard salary for a first-year CUNY adjunct.
Forty-two
years later, I am a seasoned teacher.
I’m also a practicing attorney. I
taught for many years while a graduate student at Columbia University, where I
earned both my Ph.D. and J.D. I also taught at the New School and, for a year,
as an adjunct lecturer at Barnard College.
For the past 10 years, while practicing law, I’ve been an adjunct
assistant professor at Hunter College.
Now at the high end of the pay scale for that position, I earn the grand
sum of $3,928.05 per course – a bit more than half (according to the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Standards inflation calculator, 53.7%), in real dollars, of what I
earned in 1974 as a first-year adjunct.
Today’s
first-year adjuncts earn about 40%, in real dollars, of what I earned in
1974. The new contract, which raises
salaries for both part-timers and full-timers by a bit more than 10%, will not
begin to bridge that gap. In plain
English – my subject – it ain’t enough.
Every other public sector union has won raises for their workers over
the years that have at the very least kept up with inflation. The Professional Staff Congress (PSC) has
failed to do that. Time after time, our
union leaders have accepted bad deals.
Full-timers have suffered; but
adjuncts have been the worst affected. Moreover, the presently proposed across-the-board
10% merely widens the gap between full-time and adjunct faculty, while failing
to provide adjuncts with a living wage.
This means that the instructors who teach more than 60% of CUNY courses,
particularly introductory and remedial courses that require the most individual
attention, are paid far less than full-time faculty – in many instances, not
enough to pay their basic living expenses -- and that this gap is merely
widened by the present contract offer.
We are seasoned professionals with advanced degrees, including PhD’s, who
are dedicated to our students and the NYC community. Yet once again, we are being short-changed.
While acknowledging that the
salaries for adjuncts remain unacceptably low, the PSC nevertheless touts the
promise of 3-year contracts for some adjuncts.
That promise, however, is illusory.
To obtain a 3-year contract, an adjunct must have taught at least two
courses in the same department, at a single CUNY school, in each of the
previous 10 semesters. As all of us know
only too well, however, courses are often canceled, sometimes only weeks before
the first day of classes. That is
because enrolment is not predictable, and full-timers take priority when classes
do not fill. Adjuncts who signed contracts
to teach two courses can lose one or both of those courses, often when it is
too late to find another section to teach.
For this reason, few adjuncts can
meet the criteria for a 3-year contract.
For example, although I’ve been an adjunct assistant professor at Hunter
for over 10 years, about three years ago one of my courses was canceled. Therefore, I am not eligible for a three-year
contract. Indeed, few adjuncts, even
those teachers who have been hired year after year for decades, will qualify. Moreover,
CUNY has the right to review the contract provision in 2020, thus making the
promise of job security even more illusory.
The 3- year contract is tempting, tasty bait; yet few will qualify and
that bait may soon disappear.
In
addition, the new contract continues to limit the number of credits that
adjuncts may teach across CUNY in each semester. Combined with the paltry raise, this means
that thousands of CUNY teachers will continue to earn poverty-level incomes. The
PSC claims that this is the best that can be achieved. Really?
Are they kidding?
Many
adjuncts and full-timers believe that this contract is half-a-loaf, better than
none. I disagree. This deal is not even half-a-loaf. It’s not even a slice of bread. It is bait:
a crumb attached to a hook. That hook is continued exploitation,
insecurity and poverty. The PSC leadership promised to fight for us
adjuncts; yet all that it has delivered is a salary that remains about half of
what I was earning on that morning, 42 years ago, when I navigated my way up to
Lehman in a borrowed car. All CUNY has
given us in the way of job security is a raise that brings us nowhere near the
cost-of-living; and a 3-year contract for which I, an experienced professional,
as well as most of my colleagues, will not qualify. Even worse, such contracts may “go away” in
2020.
I am voting
“no,” because it’s time to tell the PSC, CUNY and Governor Cuomo that it is not
okay to finance hundred million dollar developments in Buffalo while CUNY
teachers scrounge the money for a metro card.
Could the Governor live on 40% of Malcolm Smith’s (then the NYS
governor) 1974 salary? Do the members of
the UFT and other public sector unions have no job security? Does Barbara Bowen think that we adjuncts
will take the bait, shut up, and “wait till next year” – again, and again, and
yet again?
This time I around, I won’t take the bait and
wait; I’m voting “no.”
Rita C. Tobin is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Hunter College (2005-present) and a practicing attorney.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Details on Proposed New Contract -- Memorandum of Agreement between PSC and CUNY
Here is the Memorandum of Agreement between President Barbara Bowen of our union and CUNY Chancellor James Milliken. The Executive Council of the PSC already accepted this, though the vote was not unanimous. On Thursday June 23 at 6:30pm the Delegate Assembly of the union will vote on it, most likely against the protests of many adjuncts and graduate students.
Memorandum of Agreement (aka draft contract)
The PSC website also has a summary of the new contract: PSC summary of contract
Memorandum of Agreement (aka draft contract)
The PSC website also has a summary of the new contract: PSC summary of contract
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Recommended to CUNY: Adopt the Vancouver Model
What is the Vancouver model? It's a plan to be fair to part-time and full-time faculty alike, to basically eliminate the two-tier system.
At Vancouver Community College, after instructors complete a relatively short probationary period and a successful review, they become "regular" instructors with the presumption of reappointment. Over time, part timers may switch to full time positions or may remain working part time. All faculty are on the same pay scale and the same seniority list.
Wouldn't it be great if the CUNY administration and the Professional Staff Congress would get together and set up such a fair and sensible plan at CUNY?
If you think we can do better at CUNY, study the Vancouver faculty's contract:
Vancouver Community College contract
At Vancouver Community College, after instructors complete a relatively short probationary period and a successful review, they become "regular" instructors with the presumption of reappointment. Over time, part timers may switch to full time positions or may remain working part time. All faculty are on the same pay scale and the same seniority list.
Wouldn't it be great if the CUNY administration and the Professional Staff Congress would get together and set up such a fair and sensible plan at CUNY?
If you think we can do better at CUNY, study the Vancouver faculty's contract:
Vancouver Community College contract
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Contingent Faculty Union at Barnard Demands $15,000 Per Course
Naturally, their employer says that is ridiculous, pointing to the low wages of other contingent or adjunct faculty in the region. So Barnard is trying to tell their faculty that they won't pay a fair wage for teaching because, for example, CUNY doesn't?
talks-grow-testy-between-barnard-contingent-faculty-union
Check out the contract proposal made by Barnard's Contingent Faculty (adjunct and other faculty off the tenure track) and imagine how excited about the strike authorization vote we'd feel if the PSC made similar demands for the majority of CUNY's faculty:
Contract Proposal of Barnard Contingent Faculty
talks-grow-testy-between-barnard-contingent-faculty-union
Check out the contract proposal made by Barnard's Contingent Faculty (adjunct and other faculty off the tenure track) and imagine how excited about the strike authorization vote we'd feel if the PSC made similar demands for the majority of CUNY's faculty:
Contract Proposal of Barnard Contingent Faculty
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Our Different Worlds: An Open Letter from an Adjunct (BMCC) to the Union Contract Bargaining Team
To the Bargaining team
There are many different worlds and cultures represented by
the PSC. Each of these units has sought to achieve, and mostly succeeded in establishing a basic foundation of rights and
benefits. This includes but is not limited to: true job security, wrap-around
health benefits, including free or affordable family plans, Workman’s Compensation,
pensions that will provide enough into retirement, medical coverage that can be
taken into retirement, FMLA, yearly step increases, adequate sick days,
cumulative sick leave, and paid vacation days.
These cornerstones, which others are building upon, have not yet been
achieved by adjunct instructors, the largest group, of these factions.
Now, in the time of contract negotiations, we are told everyone
has needs, so we can but have one wish, and, as we have achieved so little, it
is not left to our discretion to make that choice, but has been determined by
all those who are fortunate enough to have already surpassed us in every
category.
Adjuncts understand when we are hired that we will make far
less than FT instructors. That is
obvious and a bargain we strike with full cognizance. In my case, when was I hired in 1982, I was just happy that I could teach in a college environment,
and the money was adequate at that time. What was not apparent and did not
become apparent for decades were the unnecessary and negotiated discrepancies
in every other aspect of our lives. One must have a family to discover the
family plan is unaffordable. One must
slash and burn through TRS, before one fully realizes how impossible the gap
between our pensions and the cost of our lives will be when we retire. One must
get very sick, before one realizes that there is no help if he/she exceeds that
first week and that- not just paychecks- but medical care will be
terminated.
We understand that for those
who have already attained these thresholds it is easy to view every other
group as simply competing for the next step upward. However, our world does not offer those basic
protections.
Therefore, we would ask that SOME of these inequities, not just
one, be eliminated in this contract. At the moment, the only provision
crafted for us is a malapropism called job
security which involuntarily chains senior adjuncts to three year contracts,
triggering perpetual review and the continual risk of being excised from our departments.
Certainly no Full time faculty member
would ever tolerate such a provision, yet our leadership has spent months
negotiating it, despite our objections at every First Friday meeting.
Our world does not incorporate the gains made by our comrades,
despite promises from the leadership, spanning 15 years. No adjunct can vote Yes in
this contract if there is not some significant movement to reduce some of the
inequities of our lives.
Jane Clark
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