Tax the Rich Event Thursday | Health and Safety Week, Dec 8-12

Join experts and advocates, including NYSUT President Melinda Person and NYS Senator John Liu, for an online town hall about why and how corporations and the ultra rich who just got a huge federal tax cut should pay their fair share of taxes in New York State. Then get involved in the campaign to win the revenue necessary to fully fund CUNY and deliver on an affordability agenda of free buses, affordable housing and universal childcare. Click here to register and get the Zoom meeting link.

RSVP FOR TAX THE RICH

Aaron Davis Hall, City College of New York
129 Convent Avenue at West 135th Street

Borough hearings of the CUNY Board of Trustees are an opportunity for the CUNY community to demand action from the Board on a wide range of issues. We urge members to register and testify at the December 9th hearing about:

• The need to strengthen – not undermine – First Amendment rights and academic freedom on campuses and reinstate the four faculty members fired over the summer
• Threats to health and safety in our CUNY workplaces
• The budgetary needs of your departments, offices and colleges

Persons wishing to testify are required to notify the Office of the Secretary via email at [email protected] prior to noon THIS FRIDAY, December 5th. Your name, college and contact information should be included in the email. Copy PSC Communications Director Fran Clark at [email protected] when you email the Secretary, so we know that you will be there. Testimony is limited to three minutes. Substitution of registered speakers is not permitted. Bringing a print version of your statement to submit to the Board when you testify is recommended, but not required. Whether you can make it in person or not, written testimony of any length can also be uploaded to the Secretary’s Dropbox at this link before 12:00 noon, Thursday, December 11th. Here is the official hearing notice.

PSC members have a legal and contractual right to a safe and healthy workplace free from hazards such as mold and construction particulates. We don’t have to put up with broken escalators and elevators, leaky ceilings, overly hot or cold workspaces, trash, or rodents. Our union has a strong and well-organized group of Environmental Health and Safety Watchdogs and we have a new contractual right to a dedicated Health & Safety labor-management committee at every CUNY college.

The Watchdogs have designated next week – the week of CUNY’s Trustees hearing and a University-wide Health and Safety Labor-Management meeting – a Health and Safety Week of Action. Here’s how you can get involved:

• Testify before the Board of Trustees next Tuesday at City College to describe threats to health and safety and crumbling facilities at your college/worksite. (See above for how to register to testify.)
• Take photos to document health and safety risks and physical degradation of your CUNY campus/worksite and share them on your preferred social media platforms, tagging your college and the PSC. We’ll share a social media kit to help you post and members who don’t use social media can send their photos to [email protected]. We’ll share them for you!
• Attend the next PSC Health and Safety Watchdogs meeting on Zoom, Thursday, December 11, at 3:30 PM to hear updates about our college and CUNY-wide labor-management meetings and to plug into campaigns to protect members from mold at City Tech and Medgar Evers College and from construction particulates at Queens College. Click here for the Zoom meeting registration.

Despite the firing of immigration judges, Guardian reports of FBI monitoring, and increasing ICE raids in NYC communities, PSC members are continuing to bear witness and support immigrants who are called to the courts at 26 Federal Plaza. Join your colleagues as we continue to escort our neighbors out of the courts at the same time as, in the communities, ICE has been shut down when they attempt to launch raids. As the holidays approach, our support is appreciated more than ever. Meet us This Thursday and/or Friday at 8:00 AM in front of 319 Broadway, across the street from 26 Federal Plaza. PSC court watch training is required to participate. Sign up here via Zoom to attend the next online PSC court watch training on Wednesday, December 17 at 6:30 PM.

We’re excited to announce that two elected PSC leaders have been appointed to positions where they can help lead the national fight to protect adjunct and contingent academic workers.

• President James Davis has been appointed to the Workers Defense League (WDL) national board, joining past PSC President Barbara Bowen in that capacity. A non-profit workers’ rights organization that specializes in helping people who have been denied unemployment insurance, the WDL has been a powerful resource for NYC workers, especially CUNY adjuncts.
• Vice President for Part-Time Personnel Lynne Turner has been appointed to the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) standing Committee on Contingency and the Profession. Under Turner’s leadership, the PSC joined with AAUP and Higher Education Labor United to organize last month’s forum, Combatting Contingency in a Time of Political Repression.

Register here to get the Zoom webinar link.

Join AFT President Randi Weingarten and AAUP President Todd Wolfson for an update on the AAUP/AFT “Higher Education: Saving Lives, Building Futures, Powering the Economy” campaign on Wednesday, Dec. 10, from 4:00-5:00 PM. PSC members have worked in coalition with our regional colleagues at AAUP and Higher Education Labor United, as well as with student organizations to support the campaign. Together, we’ve organized a city-wide town hall at NYU, a protest of billionaire Marc Rowan, the man behind Trump’s authoritarian “compact” for universities, and a forum in the PSC Union Hall, Combatting Contingency in a Time of Political Repression. The national campaign will broaden its reach in the coming year to focus on the midterm congressional elections.

Last week, the AAUP published a report, “In Defense of an Independent and Representative Faculty Voice: The Case of Faculty Senates,” which responds to accelerating legislative and political attacks on faculty governing bodies around the country. It warns: “The curtailment of the faculty’s authority in governing higher education institutions today will not only inevitably undermine the faculty’s professional freedoms, but, more important, will also spoil the fruits of those freedoms—an independent, intellectually rigorous, and incorruptible education for future generations.”

Roxanne Shirazi (Associate Professor, Graduate Center Library) is an elected PSC Delegate to the AAUP and a member of the College and University Governance Committee that produced the report.

Join PSC leaders, investment advisors, and colleagues for a in-person forum on ethical investment practices for our union reserves. Participants will discuss the opportunities and challenges for our union in pursuing a values-driven investment strategy. This event is open to dues-paying PSC members. Pre-registration is required for building access. Fill out the webform at this link to RSVP.