Moore brings decades of labor experience
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Faye Moore, the new PSC director of contract enforcement, grew up surrounded by union organizing. At a young age, she knew who a scab was, what a picket line was and why one should never cross one and how fellowship brought members together at the workplace.
“When [unions] would do the negotiations and they would be on the news, nobody had a jacket on and everyone was sweating,” recalled Moore, who grew up following the struggles of municipal unions in New York City. “I actually said, ‘I want to do that.’”
PUBLIC SECTOR ADVOCATE
That inclination was natural. Her mother worked in social services and was a union steward at Communications Workers of America Local 1180 and her father was a construction worker and a union member. Moore’s grandmother took part in the 1965 Welfare Strike in New York City, where workers and clients walked out together to demand better working conditions. Advocacy for the public sector and for the labor movement was part of her upbringing. Moore brings these core values and decades of experience in the labor movement to her new role at the PSC. She also holds a degree in criminal justice from John Jay College.
“I think we’re all better served when we’re pushing to make the workplace and the world better for somebody else,” said Moore, talking about her work as a contract enforcer and advocate for PSC members. “This is not easy work; it is not an easy population. This is not an easy administration.”
She heads up a department of nearly three dozen people – both PSC staff and members trained in the intricacies of the contract as grievance counselors and HEO and CLT advisors.
“Faye is smart, thoughtful, tough and sensible,” said Carla Cappetti, a PSC grievance counselor since 2006 and chair of the PSC Grievance Policy Committee. “Even in stressful moments, Faye is levelheaded and unflappable.”
UPDATING THE CONTRACT
Cappetti, a professor of English at City College, added, “You know that she is not phased that something is rubbing her the wrong way…. She neither flies off the handle nor pretends that nothing happened.”
Moore began as a PSC contract coordinator in 2018. In her new role, Moore has specific goals. She wants to make sure that there are grievance representatives at each chapter to ensure the best possible coverage. Along with her department, she plans to look at outdated contract language – places where the contract no longer reflects how PSC members do their work – and devise new language to present to the Committee on Contract Negotiations for the next round of negotiations.
Moore wants every PSC member to have a good working knowledge of the contract, so they know for themselves what protects them and what is prohibited. Members should not shy away from asking PSC grievance representatives questions about their rights.
“Faye knows the importance, relevance and leverage power of our contract. She is highly responsible and dedicated to working on and applying contractual fairness for our members,” said George Emilio Sanchez, a PSC Executive Council member and PSC chapter chair at the College of Staten Island.
DIGNITY AND RESPECT
Moore’s ethos is simple: members’ work must be respected by management and members should expect to be treated with dignity on the job. But she noted that finding a leadership position to fight for those ideals isn’t always easy.
“You look at the [labor] movement and say, ‘Why do some people succeed, and why do some people not?’ And then, you have to define what success is,” said Moore, talking about the challenges and opportunities in organized labor. “For any Black woman in the labor movement, I would define success as no matter what level you achieve, you’re still true to yourself.”
Prior to joining the PSC, Moore served as president of a 17,000-member public sector union, Social Services Employees Union Local 371, one of the largest locals in District Council 37. Before that she was the union’s vice president of grievances for nearly 15 years, where she managed grievance representatives and fought against nearly every agency in New York City government.
ONE UNION
The ultimate goal in her union work, Moore said, is to build solidarity across titles. She has worked in unions where she represents both the people who clean homeless shelters and the people who run the shelters.
She knows that the strength of a union is when all titles are united and see themselves as members in one union. At the PSC, it means part-time and full-time faculty, HEOs and CLTs coming together.
“I’m not going to try to sell a fantasy, [saying] that it always works,” Moore said. “Because it doesn’t. It’s very hard, but it can be done.”
Read the contracts that represent PSC members. If you have a workplace issue, go to the PSC-CUNY website to find a grievance counselor.
