Five years without a contractual raise is an insult to faculty and staff and destructive to the University, PSC activists say. “CUNY management’s failure to deliver on a contract hurts CUNY students, too, by damaging the University’s competitiveness and blocking changes that can protect the quality of a CUNY education,” a union statement declared this spring.
In mid-April, the PSC moved to take its message directly to students: at campuses across CUNY, hundreds of faculty and staff began wearing T-shirts that said “Five Years Without a Union Contract Hurts CUNY Students’’ on the front, and on the back, “Ask Me Why.” The black-and-white shirts were produced in Spanish as well.
You can sign up to wear a T-shirt in class, or wherever you work at CUNY, by filling out a short form on the PSC website at psc-cuny.org/IWillWearAShirt. Every T-shirt comes with a set of talking points to get you started.
And while you’re wearing your shirt, you’re invited to take a selfie (or a group photo) with colleagues or students and share it on Twitter or Facebook. Tweet at your college, at Chancellor Milliken (@jbmilliken) and at Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (@CarlHeastie) with #CUNYNeedsARaise.
