Audit of Dependent Heath Coverage Deadline Extended to November 4
PSC bargaining unit members and retirees under 80 years of age who have dependents covered by their City health insurance plan have been receiving notices from the City over the past few weeks about the Audit of Dependent Benefits Eligibility. The audit requires those with dependent coverage to submit certain documents showing their dependents are eligible; those who do not do so face loss of dependent coverage. An agreement between the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC) and the City established an appeal process and other protections for audited employees and set a document-submission deadline of Oct. 4. It has become clear that the City and the private consultant hired to carry out the audit did not have an effective plan for dealing with the volume of responses they have received. The City has not yet finalized the appeal process, and now says that employees should submit their dependents’ documentation by Nov. 4, even if they did not submit anything before the Oct. 4 deadline. See the latest Clarion coverage for what to do if you 1) had to submit an incomplete response to the audit, 2) you received a “notice of cancellation of coverage for unverified dependents,” or 3) you never received a notice of the audit.
Adjuncts: Share Your Job-Insecurity Story!
To support the union’s negotiations with CUNY management about adjunct job security, PSC is collecting stories about how job insecurity personally affects adjuncts at CUNY. If you are working as an adjunct faculty member at CUNY, please share your story at psc-cuny.org/jobsecurity. Share the effects that job insecurity has on your personal and professional life. Tell us how job insecurity affects your classroom performance, your ability to serve students and your relationships with colleagues. Or just share how it makes you feel—you decide how best to make the point.
The union will post collected stories during Campus Equity Week (Oct. 27 – Nov. 2) and use them throughout the rest of the job security campaign. Stories submitted via the website may be posted online, reported in testimony or offered to inform the contract negotiations. Names will not be used unless adjuncts give specific approval.
Volunteer Today: We Need a Big Win at the Polls
PSC’s candidate for mayor, Bill de Blasio, needs a big margin of victory to make his progressive plans for the City a reality. De Blasio is calling for a 50% increase in City funding for CUNY, universal pre-K and expanded afterschool programs, but he needs a clear electoral mandate to win support for an anti-austerity budget that funds these investments with fairer tax policies and an end to wasteful corporate tax breaks. Electing all of our candidates and winning with a big margin matters for CUNY faculty, staff and students and for all New Yorkers. That’s why PSC members are volunteering for get-out-the-vote activities happening between now and the Nov. 5 general election. Click here to sign up to help.
UFS Response to Communications from Former Chancellor Matthew Goldstein to the AAUP on Pathways
Several memos have been exchanged between the AAUP and the CUNY Chancellery concerning the Pathways Initiative and matters of academic freedom and shared governance. The most recent communication is that of June 21, 2013 in response to a communication by AAUP official Robert Kreiser, who called the Chancellor’s attention to the “Resolution in Support of Faculty Control of Curriculum at the City University of New York” adopted at the AAUP Annual Meeting on June 15, 2013. Many of former Chancellor Matthew Goldstein’s statements about this subject in his responses to AAUP are inaccurate or misleading. Last week the Executive Committee of the CUNY University Faculty Senate released their response to the most significant statements in Chancellor Goldstein’s most recent reply to AAUP. Read the full UFS response.
