Felicia Wharton, PSC Treasurer: “What is frustrating is that we do not have an implementation timeline to share with our members. The security of knowing when to expect these payments is essential to the needs of thousands of dedicated faculty and staff. For many of us, these funds represent basic living necessities.” (View Felicia Wharton’s video testimony here.)
Penny Lewis, PSC Vice President for Senior Colleges: “The Trustees must also–today, this week, immediately–ensure that the administration that you supervise has completed all the work necessary to ensure that CUNY faculty and staff receive the salary increases and ratification bonuses we are entitled to with the passage of our most recent contract. We have heard that the state is still waiting on information from CUNY. What is happening? Why isn’t this work complete?” (Read Penny Lewis’s full testimony here.)
Cheryl Morrison, PSC HEO delegate, York College: “The raise is approved yet there is no date timeline or communication about when it will be implemented. It feels like we are in limbo. Like our value has been acknowledged in words but not in action.” (View Cheryl Morrison’s video testimony here.)
Kevin Adams, PSC HEO delegate, Medgar Evers College: “Our members deserve to know precisely what is causing these delays and, more importantly, what concrete steps are being taken to rectify the situation immediately…. The timely and accurate disbursement of the compensation we have rightfully earned is a matter of basic fairness and respect.” (Read Kevin Adam’s full testimony.) (View Kevin Adam’s video testimony here.)
Maudry-Beverley Lashley, PSC Chapter Chair, Medgar Evers College: “We negotiated a contract in good faith, yet we are still awaiting the retroactive pay, bonuses, and salary adjustments that were agreed upon. What has become of these commitments?” (View Maudry-Beverley Lashley’s video testimony here.)
Jessica DeCoux, Adjunct Lecturer, NYC College of Technology: “The current presidential administration is openly attacking universities by shifting into high gear the plan to defund and privatize education, while seeking to render all universities, public and private, into toothless, truthless peddlers of propaganda and racial inequality. We see evidence of this all around us. I exhort you to prepare yourselves to resist, firmly, fervently, and courageously, the impositions that this regime will attempt to impose upon us.” (Read Jessica DeCoux’s testimony here.)
Nancy Romer, Professor Emerita, Brooklyn College: “Pay the Retroactive pay to all employees and ratification bonus of $3000 for full-time employees and pro rata for part-time employees. CUNY workers have waited long enough. Pay them now!” (Read Nancy Romer’s full testimony here.)
Tanya Serdiuk, PSC HEO advisor, Medgar Evers College: “MEC has lost 34 HEO positions, dropping from 192 HEOs in 2019 under the previous administration to 158 in 2024… This kind of staff turnover is a blazing red flag in predicting an organization’s future health. For the HEOs that remain their workload has increased exponentially with HEOs being forced to work out of title; to work well beyond the 35 hour week; and with little hope of a reclassification salary bump.” (View Tanya Serdiuk’s video testimony here.)
