Bargaining Update 20 | Win at Arbitration

The May 29 bargaining session included proposals from CUNY management about adjunct job security and a slightly updated “comprehensive” proposal, while the PSC redoubled our effort to improve CLT promotional opportunities and laid groundwork at the table for a counter to management’s vision for adjunct job security.

Read the full update here.

All dues-paying members are welcome to observe a bargaining session after attending an online orientation. Your next opportunity to attend an orientation will be:

• Wednesday, June 12, 6:30-7:30 PM, Register here for the 6/12 Zoom.
• Tuesday, July 9, 6:30-7:30 PM, Register here for the 7/9 Zoom.

PSC members are mobilizing to testify to demand a fair contract and to object to management’s proposed amendments to the CUNY Bylaws at the Bronx Borough Hearing of the CUNY Board of Trustees on Monday, June 17th. Click here to let us know if you plan to testify or if you can come to support our colleagues who speak and to protest the Trustees for their failures. If you intend to testify, you will still have to notify the Secretary of the Board of Trustees by sending a message with your name and college to [email protected] by noon on Friday, June 14. Copy PSC Communications Director Fran Clark, [email protected]. Here is the official notice from CUNY.

The in-person hearing will start at 4:30PM and will be held at Bronx Community College in the Playhouse Theatre, Roscoe Brown Performing Arts Building. The main entrance to BCC is at 2155 University Avenue. The entrance closest to the hearing is on Hall of Fame Terrace (map).

RSVP: BRONX TRUSTEES HEARING, 6/17

Mayor Eric Adams has cut almost $95 million from CUNY’s budget since he took office, and those cuts have left students with inadequate services and community colleges without needed faculty and staff. Last week he announced $127 million in partially reversed cuts for K-12 schools–but nothing for CUNY! We’re pushing Adams to do the same for CUNY every chance we get, ignoring his finger wagging, and refusing to let him pass the blame on to Washington.

The New York City Council restored $32 million in funding for community colleges in last year’s City budget, but we need them to do even more this year. You can help by taking these actions:

New City Budget Letter Campaign:

Urge Your the Mayor and your NYC Council Member to Restore the Cuts to CUNY

This updated letter campaign fires off a letter to the Mayor and then a different letter to your City Council Member. The letters demand restoration of the Mayor’s cuts and new investments so that CUNY can fill the more than 400 positions left vacant by the budget cuts, invest in expanded ASAP, fix our crumbling facilities, and help students qualify for Fair Fares.

If you live outside of the city, use the address of your CUNY campus and send the letter as a worker in the local council member’s district.

SEND NYC BUDGET LETTER

New York’s primary elections for federal and state offices are on Tuesday, June 25, and early voting starts on Saturday, June 15. Find your poll site here.

Now is a crucial moment for PSC members to stand with higher education champions who stood with us for CUNY funding in Albany. On June 15th, the first day of early voting, PSC will be partnering with our union siblings at NYSUT and UFT to rally and door knock in Queens in support of State Assemblymember Emily Gallagher and in Brooklyn for State Senator Kristen Gonzalez.

On Monday night, June 17th, we will follow up the canvasses with an in-person phone bank at the PSC offices for Assemblymember Gallagher and Senator Gonzalez.

Sign up here for these important get-out-the-vote actions:

• Early Vote Rally + Canvass with Kristen Gonzalez, June 15, 11:00am, Athens Square Park, Astoria, Queens
• Early Vote Rally + Canvass with Emily Gallagher, June 15, 11:00am, McCarren Park, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
• Phone Banking at PSC-CUNY HQ, 25 Broadway, June 17, 6:00pm, 25 Broadway, 15th floor

The PSC Executive Council has voted to endorse NYC Council Member Chi Ossé’s FARE Act, a bill that would require the party who hires an apartment rental broker to also pay the broker fee. After the vote, PSC President James Davis released the following statement:

“Rent and associated living costs continue to rise across New York City; when landlords hire brokers but shunt the cost onto tenants, move-in costs can mushroom over $10,000, a prohibitively expensive sum for PSC members and the students and communities we serve. We are proud to join over a dozen other New York City unions, representing hundreds of thousands of working New Yorkers, in endorsing this common-sense legislation, which is already sponsored by a majority of City Council Members. ”

A video explaining the FARE Act is posted here on Council Member Ossé’s TikTok. The public will have an opportunity to register their support for the bill at a hearing sponsored by the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection on Wednesday June 12, 10 AM in the Council Chambers. You can pre-register to testify at this link. Online testimony requires pre-registration. You can pre-register for in-person testimony, but it is not required.

CUNY and the PSC have agreed to extend the use of annual leave days in excess of the 45 day limit to December 31, 2024. Unused, unscheduled holidays may not carry over. So, members should make every effort to use their 45 days (or whatever remains) and their unscheduled holidays by August 31st, 2024. Here is the agreement.