Rallies for Health, Safety and Jobs
Bronx Community College & Medgar Evers College
Fri., Jan. 28 @12:30PM
Classes are scheduled to begin this Friday, and CUNY management has failed to put forward an actual policy to implement and clarify the employee vaccine mandate. Our demands for expanded testing and distribution of masks that reflect the CDC’s latest guidance have not yet been met.
Enrollments are lower than expected at many campuses, and management has failed to provide a clear directive telling colleges to allow under enrolled classes to continue. Adjuncts are at risk for losing income and possibly their health insurance, and students are at risk for losing their academic momentum.
The PSC is rallying this Friday at campuses in the Bronx and Brooklyn to hold management accountable for these failures and to press our demands to keep us safe and keep us working. Let us know you’ll be there this Friday at 12:30 at either Bronx Community College (181st St. & University Ave.) or Medgar Evers College (Bedford Ave. & Crown St.).
Send a Letter to the CUNY College Presidents
Tell them to keep us all safe and working!
Join your colleagues in demanding that all CUNY college presidents act to avert another round of mass layoffs of adjunct faculty. Send this letter, which urges the presidents to allow under enrolled Spring semester classes to go forward as planned and shift to online courses as appropriate. Tell the presidents that there is no good reason to again subject CUNY adjuncts who are depending on the income from their courses to insecurity, hardship, and possible loss of health insurance. There is no good reason to undermine the mission of CUNY by canceling courses that students need to stay on their path to graduation. Our health and safety demands are also addressed in the letter.
Health and Safety Poll Results
More than 4,500 CUNY faculty and staff participated in the PSC health and safety poll, which closed right before midnight Friday, January 21. The results are in, and the PSC is still studying them. Here is the summary. This was not a scientific poll, but we are going to balance the results we have by title and campus and share results with chapters.
- 86% of respondents reported beginning (or continuing) any in-person work at the start of the Spring semester.
- 77% reported being moderately (18.8%) or very (58.3%) concerned about CUNY requiring more in-person work in the spring semester than last fall.
On the whole, regarding the risks we face working in person, respondents were most concerned about working among a population with mixed vaccination status. Majorities also expressed high concern about the personal, familial, and public health risks of COVID.
- 69% of all respondents (87% of HEOs; 67% of CLTs) said that they are moderately or very concerned about the expiration of the remote work agreement.
- 44% of all respondents (57% of teaching adjuncts) answered that they are moderately or very concerned about cancellation of in-person courses due to under enrollment.
The vast majority of poll respondents support the actions that the PSC has demanded CUNY take to mitigate the spread of COVID.
- 87% ranked both “permit greater flexibility for remote work and/or teaching” and “expand vaccine mandate to cover everyone in CUNY buildings” as moderately or very important.
- 86% answered moderately important or very important that CUNY “provide N95 or KN95/KF94 masks.”
PSC Ad Urges New Yorkers to Tell Their Electeds:
Support the New Deal for CUNY
The PSC has launched a digital ad campaign calling on New Yorkers to contact their elected officials to support and fund the New Deal for CUNY. The ads, which are set to run on multiple social and online media platforms in targeted legislative districts, feature shots of a December march where nearly a thousand New Yorkers rallied in Queens in support of the New Deal for CUNY. Learn more. Send the letter.
Higher Education Action Week, February 16-18
Lobby Alongside CUNY Students
The PSC is working in coalition with the CUNY University Student Senate, NYPIRG, NYSUT, United University Professions and the SUNY Student Assembly to organize three days of online lobby meetings. This will be the second COVID-era version of our annual student-faculty-staff advocacy day. Together, we’ll be calling for dramatic increases in State investments in CUNY and SUNY, updated facilities, free tuition and better financial aid. Sign up here to join CUNY students in online meetings with your state legislators. Meetings will be scheduled Wednesday, February 16 through Friday, February 18. (You can indicate your availability on the registration form.) The online plenary will be held on Zoom Wednesday, February 16 at 5PM.
Want to Help Engage Elected Officials?
District captains are helping mobilize PSC members (plus potentially students, alumni, families) locally in the Assembly, Senate, and City Council districts in which we live. Learn about being a district captain by filling out this form.
