We were arrested fighting for a fair contract that invests in New York
By Ana Djordjevic, Joseph Entin, Maddy Fox, Mobina Hashmi, Derek Ludovici and Naomi Schiller
For nearly 18 months, the City University of New York has failed to offer the 30,000 faculty and staff represented by the Professional Staff Congress a new and fair contract, putting the quality of education for hundreds of thousands of CUNY students at risk. That’s why on Oct. 21, we, along with dozens of PSC members, were arrested protesting the widening campaign of austerity across CUNY, which harms our colleagues and students alike.
Our union has been working without a raise or a new contract for nearly two years. But we are unwilling to accept the disrespectful offer that CUNY management has put forth. So we joined with hundreds of students, alumni, community allies and union comrades to testify at, disrupt and ultimately block the entrance to the CUNY Board of Trustees hearing taking place inside CUNY’s John Jay College.
We showed up at the CUNY board of trustees hearing to make our urgent contract demands heard. CUNY’s economic offer has smaller raises than what New York City teachers will receive, and less overall value than contracts negotiated by city teachers and State University of New York faculty alike. The offer fails to keep pace with inflation.
When we raised our voices to demand the respect of a fair offer, the trustees walked out. So, we took to the streets, pledging to block the college’s entrance until we got the fair proposal we deserve. While the board of trustees proceeded as if a long-expired contract was acceptable, we demanded the job security and raises that CUNY employees deserve.
Job security for adjuncts means stability for students. Well-staffed offices and labs filled with fairly paid professional staff mean more support and better services. Competitive pay means faculty can make their careers at CUNY mentoring students and not have to worry about whether they need to move to a more affordable region. Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions.
Our offices at Brooklyn College are understaffed. The roof in a classroom building leaks, and the plaster is peeling on the walls of several floors below that leak. Mold saturates special collections and the stacks in several CUNY libraries. A colleague is facing unemployment after years on a substitute line because the anticipated full-time position never materialized. A senior colleague is anxious because their ability to feed and house their family depends on the raise that we get. Most of our adjunct professors, already severely underpaid, do not know if they will have a job after the end of this year.
Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions.
Unlike the board of trustees, Chancellor Félix Matos Rodriguez and CUNY management, we do not accept these conditions. We know what CUNY means to this city and to the literally millions of New Yorkers who are students or alumni, and we are willing to fight for what we need to flourish.
The public education CUNY provides is a crucial public good. Almost a quarter million students attend its 25 colleges and schools, 80 percent of whom are students of color; 50 percent come from families earning less than $30,000 a year. They and their families come from almost every country in the world, but 80 percent of CUNY students are graduates of New York City high schools and 85 percent of CUNY graduates stay in New York state and contribute billions of dollars in state taxes. Ask almost any New Yorker and either they or someone they know graduated from CUNY.
The public education CUNY provides is a crucial public good.
The struggle over our contract is about fundamentally different visions of public higher education. The chancellor and the board of trustees increasingly treat CUNY as a degree factory that efficiently and cheaply churns out workers according to the shifting needs and demands of employers. By contrast, we envision a university that treats students as the thinkers and future leaders of the world that they are, a university that gives them the time to explore new ideas and develop their full potential and that supports them with more advisers and counselors, more full-time faculty and adequately paid adjuncts with job security.
The New York Police Department arrested us and put us in jail to help management silence our urgent pleas. The bosses at CUNY don’t want to be confronted with the stakes of their disrespect because they know we are in the right.
We deserve a fair new contract. Our students deserve teachers, counselors and librarians who can give them our full attention. New York deserves an excellent public university system. CUNY has a mission to be the people’s university, and we are proud to fight for that vision: one of social, racial and economic justice.
Mobina Hashmi and Joseph Entin are the co-chairs of the Professional Staff Congress chapter at Brooklyn College. Hashmi is an assistant professor of media studies. Entin is professor of English and American studies. Ana Djordjevic, Maddy Fox, Derek Ludovici and Naomi Schiller are faculty members at Brooklyn College and members of the union’s chapter leadership.
