Four prominent New York State and national labor leaders have joined the PSC in urging CUNY management to expand job security for adjunct faculty. Presidents Mario Cilento of the New York State AFL-CIO, Melinda Person of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), Irene Mulvey of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) sent a letter this week to the chancellor and chair of the Board of Trustees objecting to any diminishment in adjunct job security at CUNY and urging broader access to multi-year appointments for teaching adjuncts.
The PSC is seeking to make the expiring pilot agreement on multi-year adjunct appointments a permanent provision of the contract. We have also demanded an expansion of eligibility for the appointments and a new Certificate of Continued Employment for teaching adjuncts. CUNY management’s insulting counteroffer would more than double the time it takes for adjuncts to qualify for a multi-year appointment (to 12 years!) and reduce the contracts from three years to two.
President Davis presented the letter to the chancellor and the Board of Trustees this Monday at the Board’s Brooklyn Borough Hearing. He read excerpts from the letter, which says, “Across the country, higher education unions have recognized and emulated this provision, adapting the PSC-CUNY contract language. It would be disastrous for CUNY, whose mission has been to serve the working people of New York, to reverse the progress made for thousands of contingent employees. Given the national prominence of this issue, that would constitute a move against CUNY’s adjunct faculty and against labor on a broader scale as well.”
Published: April 4, 2024
