50 Years of the PSC
Fifty years ago, on April 14, 1972, the Legislative Conference and the United Federation of College Teachers merged to create the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY. In the five decades that have followed, the PSC has been a leading force for academic unionism and a tenacious advocate for CUNY workers and students. We are planning commemorative events to celebrate our amazing union in the Fall. The Retiree Chapter has scheduled a special virtual program (open to all PSC members) to celebrate on Monday, June 6, 1-3PM. Links to access oral histories collected by the union’s archive committee, the CUNY Digital History Archive and 40th Anniversary materials are available here on the PSC website.
State Budget for CUNY
PSC members and our partners in the CUNY Raising Alliance elevated the New Deal for CUNY this year with an impressive campaign that featured two huge marches in the city, rallies and press conferences in Albany, several student-faculty-staff lobbying events, a City Council resolution, online and TV ad campaigns, and thousands of letters, phone calls, and tweets. Your advocacy made the difference this year!
While it doesn’t include all that we wanted, this state budget increase of $240 million represents the largest year-over-year increase in state funding to CUNY in decades, breaking with the austerity of recent years, and setting us on a path to make critical advances. Read more about it in today’s Gotham Gazette piece and in this message to members from President James Davis. The massive press coverage from the campaign and other PSC efforts is compiled on the PSC In the News page.
NYSUT Higher Education Member of the Year
Jean Grassman, PSC Health & Safety Coordinator
On April 2, Jean Grassman was honored with the Higher Education Member of the Year Award at the NYSUT Representative Assembly. A member of NYSUT and the PSC for two decades, Jean has been a PSC Health and Safety Watchdogs coordinator since 2009. In that role, she helped build and maintain a robust infrastructure of campus-based Health and Safety representatives on all our campuses.
We are so proud of Jean for having received this recognition and thank her and her fellow PSC Health and Safety Watchdog coordinators who have worked tirelessly during the pandemic to keep PSC members and CUNY students safe and healthy. Join the PSC Health & Safety Watchdogs.
Statement On ALU’s Organizing Victory Against Amazon
The Professional Staff Congress joins our union siblings in New York City, and across the country and world in congratulating the Amazon Labor Union in their successful union election at the JFK8 Warehouse in Staten Island! Amazon is the country’s second largest employer after Walmart, and, like Walmart, has engaged in egregious anti-union campaigns, firing workers and spending millions to fight against those asserting their right to collective representation. We thank the ALU for showing us all what grassroots solidarity can accomplish. We are hopeful that the ALU’s historic win will mark a turning point in the multi-year efforts by workers across the country to force Amazon into just and decent contractual standards for all its workers, and for Amazon workers to have a union voice at work. We ask our members to support the efforts of ALU through donations to the union here and pledge to work in tandem with our sister unions and allied community organizations to support ALU in winning its inaugural contract.