Below you will find notes from our previous two chapter meetings (on October 24th and December 1st). The notes from the October meeting are specifically on the take-aways from the small group breakout session where members talked about what they hope to see in the next CUNY/PSC contract; the notes from December are a summary of meeting in its entirety, and the discussion of several documents discussed.

A big thank you to Chloe Asselin (Urban Education) for both!

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Graduate Center PSC chapter member Contract Demands (October 24th meeting)

• Free tuition as part of contract
• Tuition remission for kids of PSC members
• Disclosure of administrative pay
• Cap number of online courses
  • make sure professors teaching online get same pay, benefits, etc.

• Adjuncts
  • $7000/class
  • Paid office hours
  • Lecture salaries as comparable rate- proportional pay to time worked
  • Multiyear contracts
  • Fixed ratio of adjuncts to full-time faculty/cap number of adjuncts
  • Flat sum raise as non-negotiable

• Graduate Assistants
  • Fluid transitions between graduate assistants and adjuncts in salary steps. GA work should count as adjunct step increases starting at step 2
  • Graduate students have a promotional option to get full-time jobs
  • Cap on class size
  • Language needed around TAships- “excessive workload” is vague
  • Formalize preservation of raises for GAs so that stipends are included in bargaining
  • Pedagogy skills before entering classroom

• HEOs
  • Transparency in the reclassification process
  • Equal pay for equal jobs for HEOs when new contract negotiated
  • Possibility to work from home under certain circumstances such as medical ones
  • Authority in shaping funding, awards, recognition, representation in different kinds of decision-making
  • Replenish center lines with full-time staff

• Full-time
  • Increase number of full-time faculty lines
  • Diversity requirements
  • Course credit for teaching in summer
  • Fair share of external research grants
  • Make refusal to fill open lines from retirement, etc. grievable
  • Protect tenure

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Meeting notes from December 1st

We focused on the urgency of fighting back against the attack on labor of a Trump administration. A Trump Supreme Court will most likely vote in favor of a court case similar to “Friedrichs” making the entire country “right to work.” We presented three documents we hope the EC will endorse/pass tomorrow: CUNY as a sanctuary campus, labor against Trump, and a resolution centering adjuncts. We discussed a four-point plan that includes 1. Center the PSC’s work on CUNY Rising and on broad social and economic justice issues; 2. Place part-timer demands front and center in our contract negotiations; 3. Be prepared to strike; 4. Deepen relationships with the most progressive and powerful elements of the NYC labor movement.

Action steps for PSC based on group discussions from today’s chapter meeting:

• Get a large group to go present adjunct resolution at the Delegate Assembly on December 15
• Mobilize base with TWU contract fight in January. We have time in January since CUNY is on vacation. Opportunity to get GTF’s involved
• Get members to DC for Inauguration Day protests
• Prioritizing adjuncts in contract campaign should not just be a strategic issue about next “Friedrichs”. Should happen no matter what
  • Urgency of signing up adjuncts right now to build adjunct power. Need more adjunct members
• We need clearer vision and concrete steps
  • Create Strike Committee now
• Leverage of public campaign.
  • Part of public campaign power was SAV
  • Connect civil rights with labor rights
  • Public campaign about how CUNY provides for NYC. We train police, teachers, fire fighters
• Internal educational work to build participation and engagement
  • Meetings between full-timers and part-timers. Meetings with students and faculty on different campuses
  • Commitment to organize adjuncts on each campus and provide educational resources to build solidarity
  • Use issues to do more one-on-one organizing similar to SAV. Train members to talk to other members and make connections between issues. Fight for contract is tied to broader issues around CUNY
  • Because we have many new members, we need more information provided to members on CUNY Rising, on last contract- what was successful or not, and explain acronyms
  • Highlight places of success for adjuncts and full-time faculty. Bring activists from locations to GC to discuss goals and how they achieved them. Adjust for CUNY and NY
• Create meaningful solidarity between different tiers of the workforce and with our students
• Stronger language in Sanctuary statement. Ban ICE, surveillance, police on CUNY campuses
  • PSC commitment to action if CUNY doesn’t respect sanctuary
• CUNY Rising- build committees on each campus to have more conversations
  • More about CUNY Rising and fact that it is student centered. How does union respond to student movements? How does union contribute to student movements?
• Larger labor movement in city. What are they doing and how is PSC participating?
• Use PSC meetings to make concrete demands.
• Language of 4-point plan should include race and inclusivity and include sanctuary campus language
• Academic freedom needs to be part of the discussion
• Build coalitions with K-12 teachers across states (PA and NJ)
• Reach out to alumni. Alumni support CUNY and the union.
• Litigation
• Have members participate as much as possible in next contract fight. Have members participate in creation and prioritization of demands