Dear PSC Member,
Welcome back to the 2026-2027 academic year! Times like these remind us how important it is to be in a labor union and to keep our union strong. Huge challenges lie ahead of us as academics, professionals, and workers. Because of our members, the PSC is positioned well to tackle them head-on.
We’ve shown over the past year what it means to fight for our students, our profession, our colleges, and our communities. We’ve shown what it means to help champions of public higher education reach elected office and to demand their support for a bold agenda. We’ve shown how to coordinate with our labor affiliates and coalition partners to defeat some of the most harmful attempts by the federal regime to impose ideological control over colleges and universities, a hallmark of the authoritarian playbook.
And we’ve shown what it means to deliver for PSC members, including a 3.5% across-the-board raise for all eligible members on September 1, equity lump sum payments later this Fall for the lowest paid full-timers and all Lecturers with a CCE, and additional progress toward adjunct pay parity with raises for all teaching adjuncts in September and June. In March 2027, $1,250 will be added to the top salary step of all eligible full-time faculty and professional staff. We did this together, despite management’s resistance at the bargaining table. In these ways and more, the PSC demonstrates a commitment to the professional respect that our members deserve. It is made possible by our strong membership and collective action.
PSC members have been waging effective campaigns at the local level, too. Queens College faculty and staff fought harmful budget cuts this summer that destabilized student schedules, diminished employee appointment hours, and forced some off payroll altogether. They also sought and finally received a clean bill of health and safety for the building that houses the historic SEEK program. The Brooklyn College chapter continues to fight alongside allies to reinstate the last of the Fired Four adjunct faculty who lost their CUNY jobs during the 2025 McCarthyite hearings of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The new post-tenure reassigned time pilot program launched with 79 full-time faculty at the Community and Senior colleges securing additional time for research and creative projects in the coming year. Adjunct leaders on all the campuses ensured that the terms of the new multi-year appointment pilot program were enforced consistently and fairly. Immigrant Solidarity working group members pressed for fully staffed Immigrant Student Success Centers on every campus, supported those attending hearings in federal court, and demonstrated alongside labor allies against the atrocities committed by ICE at Delaney Hall in Newark.
But so much more work lies ahead. And with it, many opportunities to make a difference.
We are excited to be launching a unionwide strategic plan for the coming year and beyond. It aims to focus the efforts of our members and elected leaders in three critical areas.
- Preparing for and waging a strong contract campaign, beginning with PSC members’ priorities and strategic ideas
- Building our union’s power with strong chapters and campaigns that create solidarity
- Protecting our colleges, professions, and communities while combating authoritarianism
You’ll soon see more about these plans in PSC communications and at chapter meetings, where the union’s elected officers look forward to hearing from you. There will be ways for everyone to be involved. You’ll receive guidance on how we can all help get out the vote in the midterm elections, how we can protect the integrity of those elections against the effort to sow mistrust and chaos, and how we can help proponents of public higher education get elected at the local, state, and federal levels.
Here are some upcoming events I hope you will attend:
- Tue 9/8: Labor Day Rally & March, join PSC colleagues and the NYC labor movement, 5pm, Zuccotti Park to Foley Square. Sign up here to march with the PSC.
- Wed 9/16: Midterm Elections, online PSC Town Hall, 6:30pm. Register here for the Zoom meeting link.
- Sun 9/27: First They Came for My College (free screening) 4pm, DCTV Firehouse Cinema. Documentary about hostile takeover of New College of Florida by Gov. Ron Desantis. Discussion with Pat Okker, former New College President, Amy Reid, former Chair of Gender Studies Department, and Randi Weingarten, AFT President. Reserve your seat here.
- Mon 9/28: Democracy Under Pressure, Hunter College Roosevelt House. 6:30pm.
As academics and unionists, we can advance a vision of a fully staffed university where each college has the resources to provide our students with the education and support they deserve. Enrollment at CUNY is up again this year, as it has been every year since 2022. Let’s work together this year to achieve that vision and to fend off the attacks from Washington on our institutions and our communities.
In solidarity,
James Davis, President
