CUNY faculty arrested during contract rally

Dozens of professors and other staff with the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY were arrested Monday evening during a demonstration tied to a prolonged contract fight.

More than 30 PSC members, including its president, James Davis, were arrested for blockading the 10th Avenue entrance of John Jay College of Criminal Justice while a CUNY Board of Trustees meeting took place inside. 

The union members' last contract, covering about 30,000 faculty, adjuncts and other staff in the public university system, expired on Feb. 28, 2023, and the two sides have been negotiating since June 2023. But the pay increases university officials have proposed are significantly lower than what PSC members are seeking.

“When we were inside, we told the Board of Trustees and the chancellery that ... we are prepared to blockade them in this building until they make us a new economic offer,” Davis told members at the demonstration outside of John Jay College on Manhattan’s West Side. “We’re going to sit here and we’re going to chant until they come out and make us the economic offer that you deserve, that this city deserves, that all of our students deserve.”

CUNY did not immediately return a request for comment.

Far apart

According to the PSC, the economic offer made by CUNY administrators would provide members with two 3-percent raises and two 3.125-percent raises, with the last raise of a proposed four-and-a-half-year deal expected to take effect in 2026. 

The PSC is seeking salary bumps totaling 18 percent over four years, or nearly 50 percent more than what the university is offering, and over a shorter period. Union members also noted that the proposed raises failed to keep up with inflation.

“CUNY offered unacceptable raises seven months ago, a year after their top executives received 27 percent and 30 percent bumps in pay,” Davis said. “They haven’t shown faculty, staff and students the respect of a fair economic offer and haven’t put another dollar on the bargaining table since March. We’re demanding real raises, job security, and urgency.”

PSC members argued for fair raises during CUNY’s board meeting. Immediately following their testimonies, they joined the union’s protest outside of the college.

“Most members of our 30,000-member bargaining unit have not had a cost of living increase since November of 2022 and it's been a time of unprecedented inflation, so it's been a difficult time,” Susan Kang, an associate professor of political science at John Jay, said ahead of the protest. “And so we're escalating right now because we've been bargaining for 18 months. We want a better economic offer from them.”

Kang noted that the educators’ salaries were lagging in comparison to other colleges and universities. “When I was a chair, we lost four full-time faculty members to other institutions that offered them better pay packages,” she said. “We just can't compete.”

In particular, adjuncts at CUNY often earned less than adjuncts at other universities: while CUNY adjuncts are paid $5,500 per course, adjuncts at Fordham University, The New School and Rutgers University earned from $8,000 to $10,000 a course, according to the union. 

Nivedita Majumdar, an English professor and co-chair of the PSC chapter at John Jay, noted that in addition to wages, the union was fighting to maintain and improve job security for adjuncts, who teach about 60 percent of courses at the public university system.

“This has been a fight for the last few contracts, we've made some gains but we have to do much better. Between the lack of raises and the lack of job security, those are the two real pillars of any kind of worker struggle,” she said.

Last spring, CUNY management made a proposal that would significantly increase how many semesters adjuncts must teach before they can receive multi-year appointments. Currently, CUNY adjuncts are eligible for three-year appointments if they’ve taught in the same department for 10 consecutive semesters. CUNY’s proposal would require adjuncts to teach 24 consecutive semesters in order to receive a two-year appointment.

“That is not something we are prepared to give up on at all,” Majumdar said of the three-year appointments. “We in fact want to strengthen it, so for them to be attacking it, it's a non-starter.”

Several PSC members and advocates for higher education noted the role CUNY has played in allowing economic mobility for working class and immigrant New Yorkers.

“Job security and properly paid professional academic workers means stability for our students,” Rebecca Givan, president of the Rutgers-AAUP, said during the protest. “A fight for higher education is a fight for the future of public education and democracy. We at Rutgers are in solidarity with you and with CUNY students.”

clewis@thechiefleader.com

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