Members of the PSC bargaining team and PSC staff at the signing of the tentative agreement at CUNY headquarters on December 16. (Credit: Tycho McManus)
I am excited to inform you that the PSC bargaining team and CUNY negotiators have reached agreement on a new contract. It includes across-the-board compounded raises of 13.4%, retroactive pay, additional equity raises for many of our lowest-paid colleagues and a ratification bonus for full-time PSC members of $3,000, prorated for part-timers. The final document, the proposed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), was signed on December 16. The PSC Executive Council has unanimously recommended this agreement. The Delegate Assembly will consider it on December 19 (as this newspaper goes to press) and vote on recommending it for a union-wide ratification vote, which will be administered online and by phone. The proposed agreement is not final until PSC members ratify it and the CUNY Board of Trustees votes to approve it. This was a hard-won agreement that involved PSC members in a campaign of nearly two years.
SUPPORTS STUDENTS
The proposed agreement supports quality education and services for CUNY students. It prioritizes raises and gains for all PSC members and provides additional equity raises for our lowest-paid colleagues. Faculty and staff at the top of their salary schedules will see extra pay in addition to the across-the-board raises, and a raise of at least one step with every promotion and reclassification will be guaranteed. The tentative agreement includes a new multi-year appointment pilot program for teaching adjuncts that provides for two-year appointments with a discretionary third year. There is new support for research, greater support for CLT promotion and HEO reclassification, and health and safety labor-management committees will be established for each campus. Many other economic and non-economic gains are features of the proposed contract, which spans four years and nine months, from March 2023 to November 2027.
The bargaining team endorses this tentative agreement enthusiastically because it will improve the work lives and the economic circumstances of all PSC members. After early CUNY delays and limited engagement, we have been in steady bargaining since the spring, committed to finishing this semester. With hundreds of hours working at and away from the table, the bargaining team knows how important it is to secure these annual raises and other strong gains now, in anticipation of likely economic and political instability ahead.
SIGNIFICANT BOOSTS
The tentative contract agreement includes annual salary increases comparable to other New York City and State contracts in this round of bargaining, but it also makes significant, creative interventions. Like our fellow unionized education workers in New York, our across-the-board increases do not make up for the inflation we all experienced prior to this contract period. But settlements vary from union to union, and the PSC has achieved higher across-the-board raises and significantly more value for PSC members than was included in CUNY’s initial offer, which it described as “pattern-conforming.” In addition to the across-the-board salary increases, teaching adjuncts, non-teaching adjuncts and other hourly workers, and graduate assistants will receive equity raises on top of the union-wide raises, as will our lowest-paid full-time colleagues in all CLT titles, assistants to HEOs, and CLIP and CUNY Start instructors. Over the term of the contract, the minimum pay for an adjunct teaching a three-credit course will increase 29%, from $5,500 to $7,100, as part of an agreement to base their pay structure on courses taught rather than classroom and office hours; the minimum adjunct pay for a four-credit course will increase to $9,467. Other titles receiving equity raises will see their salaries increase by as much as 43%.
For all full-time lecturers who have or will attain certificates of continuous employment, there is a $2,500 onetime payment at CCE, and a promotional title for lecturers will give them access to higher salary schedules. Employees in full-time titles who are at the top step of their salary schedules and not receiving larger equity raises will receive an additional $1,250 per year. The $3,000 ratification bonus will help take some of the sting out of recent high inflation. Crucially, a major increase in contributions to the union’s Welfare Fund, an additional $4 million annually, will support improved benefits.
HARD FIGHT
PSC fought for a remote work provision but didn’t succeed. It is disappointing, but it became increasingly difficult to move management and the state to make PSC an exception to other state contracts and formalize remote work within our contract. The Remote Work Agreement remains in effect, so this benefit has not ended and the PSC will continue to emphasize to CUNY how important this issue is to our members.
It is important that PSC members know what is not in the proposed agreement, too: management demands. The bargaining team, supported by PSC members, rejected its initial offer which included no retroactive pay, no bonus for part-time workers and minimal equity increases. We increased the overall value for members in the contract and staved off efforts to expand managerial discretion, erode job security for HEOs, eliminate multi-year appointments for adjuncts and deprofessionalize our work with students.
GOING FORWARD
If this proposed agreement is recommended for ratification by a majority of your elected delegates on December 19, the contract will be offered to all bargaining unit members for a ratification vote. The sooner we vote to ratify, the sooner PSC members receive their raises, bonuses and back pay. Ratifying the agreement in early January will allow the governor to include these costs in her executive budget, which she delivers a few weeks later. PSC members in active employment with at least four months’ standing as dues-paying members would be eligible to vote. If the delegates vote to recommend the MOA, instructions will be sent to all eligible members and voting can begin. We will also host Zoom mass meetings to discuss the tentative agreement and the voting procedure.
This tentative agreement would not have been possible without the creativity and stamina of the bargaining team. Nor could it have been achieved without the solidarity and energy of PSC members. Hundreds of observers supported the bargaining team during negotiations and contributed essential feedback. Thirty members were arrested while demanding a good contract, and many delivered hearing testimony and shared their expertise in bargaining sessions, attended press events and spoke to elected allies. Thousands more participated in union-wide meetings, marches, pickets and protests of the CUNY Board of Trustees. The most important breakthroughs at the bargaining table were a direct result of members’ action.
IT’S DEMOCRACY TIME
Upon approval from the Delegate Assembly, members will vote directly to ratify the contract. You will be mailed instructions on how to vote.
Remember to check in at the union’s website, psc-cuny.org, for more information about the proposed deal, and how to cast your vote in the ratification process.
If the DA votes to recommend the contract, beginning December 20, you will receive voting instructions and your pin from the American Arbitration Association (AAA) by USPS and electronic mail.
Published: December 20, 2024
