Join the Demonstration at the Next Contract Bargaining Session
Let’s Make Some Noise on 42nd Street
PSC will meet with CUNY management for a bargaining session on Wednesday afternoon November 4 at CUNY headquarters in midtown Manhattan (205 East 42nd St., between 2nd and 3rd Aves.). Sign up here to let us know you can join a demonstration outside the negotiations next Wednesday from 4:00-6:00 PM. (Read President Bowen’s call to action.) November 4 is also the date the union announced in advance for a mass disruptive action. Scores of PSC members have been training to participate in non-violent disruptive protest, ready to act if needed. Those members are prepared to participate on November 4 in a planned, non-violent action that will risk arrest. We need you there, too! Turn out to support your PSC bargaining team and your colleagues who will risk arrest to demonstrate what is at stake for us, our students and the people of New York in the failure to fund our contract. Here’s a flier to post and share with colleagues.
#TeachCUNY and Other Local Actions
Over 100 faculty and students turned out to connect the dots between CUNY funding, student tuition and the PSC contract at the BMCC chapter’s #TeachCUNY event last week. Another 100 faculty and students rallied for a fair contract and a tuition freeze at the College of Staten Island. The LaGuardia Community College PSC chapter held #TeachCUNY sessions throughout the day on Tuesday, October 27, with panels from 10:30 AM-3:15 PM. Chapters at Bronx Community College and Hostos Community College also have teach ins this week. More actions are scheduled at Guttman Community College and John Jay College next week. Faculty members throughout CUNY are also finding pedagogically appropriate ways to make CUNY funding and the contract part of classroom learning. Click here for a sample curriculum, a Power Point presentation and other resources. Contact your chapter chair and visit the PSC calendar to learn about events being planned for your campus.
Joint the Campaign Urging the Governor to Sign the MOE Bill
More Postcards Will Soon Be Available
The PSC, NYPIRG, and our sister union at SUNY, United University Professions, have collected thousands of postcards signed by CUNY and SUNY students in support of the Maintenance of Effort (MOE) bill (S281a/A5370a), which would ensure public funding to cover CUNY’s annual mandatory cost increases, including contractual raises. It was passed by the Legislature in June and will soon be sent to the governor for his signature. We’re on our way to meeting our statewide goal of having 100,000 post cards to deliver to the governor in late November. PSC chapters are mobilizing to help collect 40,000 cards from CUNY students. Contact your chapter chair to get involved in the campaign.
Organizing Around Climate Change
All PSC members are invited to attend a program hosted by the Retirees Chapter focusing on the December United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris. Like Kyoto and Copenhagen before it, the Paris conference will put in place new international agreements on climate with far-reaching implications for labor and the environment. The program will take place next Monday, November 2, from 1:00 – 3:00 PM in the PSC Union Hall (16th floor, 61 Broadway). Speakers will include: Reginald Blake, associate professor of physics, director of the City Tech Center for Remote Sensing and Earth System Sciences of the CUNY CREST Institute; Lara Skinner, associate director of research, Global Labor Institute, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations; and Sean Sweeney, director of the International Program for Labor, Climate and the Environment at the CUNY Murphy Institute. Learn more.
