Dear PSC Members,
You should have received an email from Chancellor Matos Rodríguez Monday night with the subject “Payout Dates for PSC Contract.” It includes a schedule for the implementation of the raises, retroactive pay, and ratification bonuses that the union negotiated with CUNY management and PSC members ratified on January 13.
- May 15: $3,000 ratification bonus for eligible full-time employees paid by the state.
- May 23: $3,000 ratification bonus for eligible full-time employees paid by the city.
- July 24: Pro-rated ratification bonus for eligible part-time employees paid by the state.
- Aug. 1: Pro-rated ratification bonus for eligible part-time employees paid by the city.
- Aug. 7: Wage increases (retroactive to 2023) for all eligible employees paid by the state.
- Aug. 15: Wage increases (retroactive to 2023) for all eligible employees paid by the city.
- Sept. 4: New salary increases (from Sept. 1 on) for eligible employees paid by the state.
- Sept. 12: New salary increases (from Sept. 1 on) for eligible employees paid by the city.
It is great that these increases for which the PSC fought hard in bargaining are locked in but outrageous that it took so long for CUNY to complete the necessary preparations for the state. The credit goes to PSC members for moving management to complete the work needed to produce a schedule. Your pressure on the central administration yielded results, and it’s a shame that it took a large, boisterous picket outside last week’s Board of Trustees meeting on April 15 and an intervention by the union president to finally receive the timeline. Inside the meeting, joined by rank and file PSC members, I shared directly with the Board the deep frustration PSC members felt (video 5:40-16:00). This issue will be discussed along with other pressing matters at a union-wide Town Hall on Monday, April 28, at 6:30PM – register here.
The implementation schedule was determined by CUNY management, the Office of State Comptroller (OSC), the NYC Financial Information Services Agency and Office of Payroll Administration (FISA-OPA). When CUNY management failed to show appropriate urgency, the PSC continually pressed, and I have been on the phone with both management and Comptroller DiNapoli regularly for the past two months.
Some factors are out of our control and are genuinely complex. For example, a teaching adjunct’s pro-rated bonus is based on their individual service record of teaching contact hours in Spring and Fall semesters in 2024. The bonus is a proportion of 24 teaching contact hours, the total workload of a full-time lecturer. However, if the adjunct’s total is 18 or more contact hours, that qualifies as full-time for purposes of the $3,000 ratification bonus. If a teaching adjunct also performed non-teaching adjunct service during the two semesters in question, that work also counts toward the calculation of the pro-rated bonus. And of course, many CUNY teaching adjuncts work at multiple campuses, including some who teach at both a community college and a senior college. None of this excuses the delays reflected in the implementation schedule, but it illustrates the level of complexity that the staff at the state and city navigate as they try to implement our contractual raises accurately and without errors.
We will talk more about the timing of our raises, back pay and bonuses on Monday, April 28 at 6:30 p.m. Complete this Zoom registration form to join fellow PSC members at the Town Hall. We will also discuss contract implementation along with critical updates on our campaigns to protect research funding, non-citizen CUNY students and workers, academic freedom and free speech on our campuses.
In solidarity,
James Davis, President
Published: April 23, 2025
