Labor management meetings are contractually protected, twice-a-semester meetings between the PSC and SPH management (dean, associate deans, labor designee aka management’s lawyer etc.). LM meetings are opportunities for the union to bring collective issues, make demands, and request information. SPH workers are putting together a structure to activate more members and hold these meetings more regularly. We are excited to report back from the first LM meeting at SPH in a while, which was attended by about 10 people on the union side, including faculty and HEOs. Union activists at SPH developed the agenda together and assigned items to different people to present.

The first issue on the table was equity, workload, and reclassification issues for HEOs. A HEO coworker spoke about the need for transparency in promotion and reclassification, equity across departments, and expressed concern that application packages are not being fully shared with the committee. As SPH workers, we asked to have complete information on the SPH website, similar to what other campuses have, including who is on the committee for HEO reclassification and the details of the process. Management thanked workers for their feedback, talked about the pause on discretional reclassification and salary step increases during COVID, and the VRB. But acknowledged that now is the time to get back to this issue and said they would share on the website. In answer to our question, they specified that the committee did not have regular meetings and that HR does review for completeness of applications before forwarding them to the committee.

A serious concern for many at SPH is a potential pattern of inequity that leaves women of color at a disadvantage. As the union, we are requesting the following information on reclassifications in the past 5 years: name, department, type of reclassification, membership in a protected class. The union chapter will make a formal request for this information in writing.

The second item on the agenda was lack of respect in the workplace. A (courageous) HEO coworker spoke in detail about low morale, bullying, retaliation, disrespect, hurt, anger, and tears that characterize the working experience of many HEOs. She explained how difficult it is to do one’s job in a toxic working environment. Unfortunately, management attempted to make this about an individual problem rather than a systemic and collective issue. They talked about filing formal complaints, for example, and we reminded them that people are anxious about filing them because they see retaliation happening. Management said they needed more information, but that of course, SPH was about equity, inclusion, and fairness. When pressed, they admitted that the portal to report discrimination was not fully anonymous. The union team brought the conversation back to management’s responsibility for ensuring an environment of respect and professionalism. We suggested guidance to supervisors about tone and boundaries. And we emphasized that the social justice mission of SPH must be put into practice for its workers, especially its women workers of color. This was the beginning of an important conversation.

The third item on the agenda had to do with the misclassification of teaching assistants who are hired to help faculty with large courses, and was presented by a faculty coworker. Workers that have contact with students, doing work like grading, should be classified either as non-teaching adjuncts or graduate assistants, both PSC titles. Instead, SPH hires them under the title of college assistant, who get paid far less, and are members of the DC-37 union. We provided examples from other CUNY campuses, as well as examples of listings for college assistants. Management spent a surprising amount of time being stuck on semantics (“how can a non-teaching adjunct teach) rather than on the substance of the issue, which is exploiting underpaid workers. They also said that they have no way of monitoring the level of interfacing with students that TAs do but also said that they do teach. Our side pointed out that we might use grievances to deal with this issue. Finally, management said that they were now aware of the issue and will investigate it quickly.

We had other items on the agenda, including class size, supplies and materials, and health and safety, but ran out of time. One hour is really not enough to discuss all the work issues at SPH! We will be using the summer to build our collective strength by talking to coworkers, getting more people to sign up to be union members, following up on the action items from this labor management meeting, and planning for the next one. Contribute to building worker power at SPH – email GC Chapter professional schools liaison [email protected]. We need all titles represented and are currently missing graduate assistants and adjuncts.