CONTRACT RALLY

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HERE’S WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR: increased salaries restored Welfare Fund benefits improved working conditions and equity WHAT’S AT STAKE IN OUR CONTRACT? what kind of university CUNY becomes what kind of professional lives we lead at CUNY what kind of education we’re able to offer to the people of New York

LETTER TO PSC MEMBERS
ON 9/29 CONTRACT RALLY
FROM BARBARA BOWEN

 

June 2005 update May 26, 2005 DA resolution authorizing  job action referendum May 2005 Clarion update April 22, 2005 bulletin March 31, 2005 DA resolution creates a defense fund. February 28, 2005 bulletin February 16, 2005 bulletin January 27, 2005 PSC-DA resolution on Contract State of Emergency January 5 & 24, 2005 bulletins December 20, 2004 bulletin December 7, 2004 bulletin on management's contract offer

September 21, 2005 Dear Colleague:  I am writing to invite you to join hundreds of PSC members from across the University at the mass meeting on September 29.  The union-wide rally is a vital step in building the power we need to defeat an unacceptable contract.   During the last few weeks, we have been sharply reminded of the suffering that arises from government disinvestment in cities and the public sphere.  While the scale and speed of the Gulf Coast disaster are unprecedented, the pattern of disinvestment is not unique.  CUNY has been stripped of 40% of its public funding since 1990; we and our students have borne the brunt of that loss.  Although the union has been highly effective in the past five years in starting to reverse the trend of under-funding CUNY, we don’t control the State and City budgets.  Nor do we control the national and global political agendas that lie behind them.    But there’s one thing we do control, and that’s the contract.  Being in a union gives us the power to say “No” to one more round of planned neglect of CUNY.  The meeting on September 29 is about how we’re going to use that power.  A union can’t build or even realize its power without coming together, and that’s why I am asking you to come to the meeting: Thursday, September 29, from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. in the Great Hall of Cooper Union.  (7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue)  In the late 1980s and the 1990s, this union signed off on a series of concessionary contracts.  We all live the results: a 35-45% drop since 1972 in the buying power of our salaries, crushing workloads, increasing costs of healthcare.  The 2000-2002 contract, the first negotiated under new leadership, broke the concessionary pattern.  We won the first above-inflation salary increases in a decade and an increase in Welfare Fund contributions by CUNY management.  The contract also brought new ideas: research time for untenured faculty, professional development grants for academic professionals, paid office hours for adjuncts to meet with students.     Now we face the toughest collective bargaining climate in New York City since the mid-seventies.  The offer on the table from CUNY management follows the austerity pattern demanded by Mayor Bloomberg: below-inflation increases “paid for” in part by give-backs.  CUNY management has demanded that we reduce annual leave and remove department chairs from the union—in exchange for a below-inflation salary increase and an inadequate solution to the needs of the Welfare Fund.    The PSC campaign so far has been effective: our letters, postcards, emails and demonstrations have forced management to reduce its demands and improve its initial offer.  But CUNY has invoked “the pattern” of other municipal settlements and is holding firm to a proposal that fails to respond to the needs of the faculty and professional staff.    Hundreds of union members are rallying on September 29 to signal our refusal to accept management’s austerity contract.  The larger our force, the stronger our voice.  The mass meeting is the pivotal step this fall in building our power.  You will hear how the union plans to use that power to force a good contract, rejecting another round of concessions and sub-par salary increases.  We’ve had enough concessions!  Come on the 29th if you have questions about what the union plans, come if you know you are ready to step up your level of action, come if you are still deciding where you stand.  The meeting is your chance to be part of a historic show of force against the continuation of a culture of scarcity at CUNY.  The September 29 rally is about our future, and it’s about our students.  It’s about whether people who’ve worked their whole lives at CUNY are entitled to decent salaries and benefits; whether young scholars will have a future here; whether our students are entitled to a good education.  It’s our chance to stand up and say, “The history of accepting the unacceptable at CUNY stops now.”  I look forward to seeing you there.  In solidarity, Barbara Bowen, President