The Professional Staff Congress won't back down

PSC-CUNY executive director Milly Silva.

Courtesey of Professional Staff Congress

Members of PSC–CUNY at a protest.

Erik McGregor/PSC-CUNY

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In an increasingly hostile climate for unions, university workers and immigrants under the Trump administration, the leadership of the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York is insistent on pushing back. Since Trump came into power, union members and leadership have hit the streets to protest against cuts to research funding, voice opposition to Trump’s immigration policy, demand that four members fired for pro-Palestinian views be reappointed and more. 

 James Davis, president of the PSC since 2021, is also focused on the bread-and-butter issues of securing contracts for his members, as the union did in late 2024, and improving funding to CUNY. But the union leader feels his membership has been mobilized on key issues affecting higher education across the country and has no plans to stop the union's activism. 

“We have an obligation to be a labor union that not only wins great contracts and fights to make sure that the contracts that we win are enforced effectively, but also that we're part of a movement that's going to take back democracy from what's happening at the federal level,” James Davis said in an interview with The Chief on Jan. 16. “Our members expect that organized labor broadly, and this union in particular, will not abdicate in this moment.” 

Davis was joined in the interview by the PSC's new executive director Milly Silva, who recently joined the union from Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union. 

The duo spoke with The Chief about expectations for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Trump administration's continued crackdown on universities and immigrants, contract enforcement and more. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Members of PSC–CUNY at a protest.

Erik McGregor/PSC-CUNY

The Chief: What are your top priorities for the year? 

James Davis: Priority number one for us is just making sure that our members and our students that we serve are safe and are getting the resources that they need in their workplace and the place that they are studying. Closely behind that, priority number two is to restore the capacity of the university that was reduced through the Eric Adams cuts to CUNY funding.  

We're down hundreds of full-time positions and on the way out the door Adams restored the [Program to Eliminate the Gap] cuts to CUNY and we want to make sure that funding goes where it's needed so that all of our members can do their work effectively serving our students. 

TC: Is there anything you've seen early on in the Mamdani administration that that gives you hope that funding will come through and that those desires will be fullfilled? 

JD: Well, Mamdani made it very clear when he was an assemblymember that he was committed to a vision of the city university that was not only fully accessible but also delivered high-quality education.  

His support for the New Deal for CUNY legislation made that clear. He was a vocal and consistent supporter in his time in the Assembly and his really innovative idea of a payment in lieu of taxes to support the city university. The pilot legislation, the REPAIR act legislation that he and [State Senator] John Liu supported also made it clear to us that he's really committed to a university that’s not only about making sure folks have access to an education in New York City but also that it is an excellent education once they get here. 

TC: What hopes then do you have for his administration in terms of CUNY? 

JD: Well, we want to make sure that it's fully funded, and we want that from both the state and the city. So we expect that both from Mayor Mamdani and from Governor Hochul. We still have a long way to go on that.  

Governor Hochul has increased funding significantly for CUNY in her time in office, but we have a long way to go to dig out from the [Andrew] Cuomo administration and I think Mamdani's message about affordability is really critical for our members and our students and the communities they come from. 

TC: And there are a lot of federal, nationwide headwinds that unions at universities are facing that PSC seems to be in the crux of. Your union has taken a pretty bold stance on immigration and ICE. Is that something you expect to continue in the coming months? 

Milly Silva: I've been on staff for only a couple weeks but just this past Saturday it was great to be part of a PSC delegation that was marching on the streets as part of the No Kings, No War, No ICE rally that happened here in New York City, and I know that's the kind of activity that I think we can anticipate PSC will continue to remain engaged in. 

JD: We have the obligation to our members, to the working people of New York City, an obligation to our students and their families — more than a third of our students were born in another country — we feel that we have an obligation to be a labor union that not only wins great contracts and fights to make sure that the contracts that we win are enforced effectively but also that we're part of a movement that's going to take back democracy from what's happening at the federal level. 

TC: Since federal agents shot and killed Renee Good in Minnesota there's been a lot more activism, a lot more protest around that issue. Is that something your members have been agitating about in recent days and speaking to union leadership about? 

JD: It is. The way that I would put it is that our members expect that organized labor broadly, and this union in particular, will not abdicate in this moment. ‘ 

What our members expect is that the labor movement will lean in and recognize that we have a responsibility to use the platform that we have and engagement we have with our members to make sure that law enforcement at every level is obeying the law, first and foremost.

History is not going to be kind to us otherwise.  

TC: Milly, you've just started this job recently. What's that experience been like so far? 

MS: I'm excited to be on the team and it's been a really intense couple of weeks really getting to know the staff and our members and coordinating our leadership team, so it’s a really great moment to be here.

TC: And what made you want to join PSC? 

MS: It is an organization that is unafraid to declare that it's going to do what is necessary to defend the rights of its membership and to move and advance a program that is about upholding and lifting up the profession and ensuring all of the faculty and staff and members of PSC are being respected by the administration. It's exciting to be a part of a progressive labor organization. ... It's a great moment and we have a great leadership team here. 

TC: Milly you came from 1199 which is mostly a healthcare and health services union. Obviously this is a quite a different field. Are there any lessons you can apply from your experience there that you think work in education? 

MS: Absolutely. One personally is that my experience as an organizer, as an advocate and also someone who has experienced negotiating contracts, is one where my work life my values are centered on how are we standing up and defending workers' rights and in particular women and immigrants and that is also something that applies to the members of the community that we serve here at PSC.  

While there are differences between healthcare and public higher education, on the healthcare side we have different kinds of job titles, we have direct care staff, we have nurses, we have professionals, [they are] very similar to what James has described in terms of the community of members who we represent in terms of adjuncts and staff.

And so while they might have different issues, fundamental and core will always be how are we building the power that we need to effectively advocate and win to improve the working conditions of the members we represent.  

So I will be learning more about the intricacies of the education system and how it is that we've been able to effectively advocate and win. But core organizing and advocacy and negotiations-- those are skills that I bring and I'm excited to be able to work and support our leadership team in moving that agenda. 

JD: This is part of why we're so thrilled to have Milly on board as an executive director at this moment. It is precisely because she has such a proven track record as a thoughtful leader committed to the labor movement; formidable talent in terms of team building; gifted communicator and a really clear track record of effectiveness in terms of improving the working conditions of professionals in and around New York City. So for all those reasons we just couldn't be more pleased that she's joined our team. 

TC: The Trump administration has been cutting deals with universities across the country, and just generally attacking higher education. What is labor's role in that fight and what is labor's role at CUNY in that fight with the Trump administration?

JD: We need to make sure that the leadership across the CUNY system takes very seriously its obligation to protect the integrity of the education that we provide. That's really what this is about. 

It's not really about partisan politics. I know that's the inflection through all of this, but really the attacks from the federal administration are about trying to interfere and impose various kinds of ideological agendas within the education space.  

So it's really critical that elected officials and the leadership that's appointed within the university system understand to best protect the integrity of the education we provide, they need to defend their rights and the faculty's rights to determine what happens within the classrooms and on the campuses more broadly.  

MS: The vision James articulated is one that is also about affirming the value of immigrants, the value of academic freedom, the value of scientific research.  

How do we make sure that while we have a federal administration right now that is looking to diminish the importance of the human beings who live in this country and are part of the economic engine of it, that is looking to diminish the practice and honoring of what it means to embrace curiosity and exploration as reflected in academic research and the opportunity and right that we have to freedom of speech and for there to be academic freedom?  

That is something that nationally we need communities to stand up for, and they are, and we need to ensure that there's also a very clear signal from labor that we are going to use all of our resources to stand up and defend that. 

TC: Recently you guys reached a new contract. Have there been issues enforcing that contract? Has there been any noticeable violations or issues that your members have been facing since that contract was ratified? 

JD: No. There's nothing flagrant.  

Every contract has enforcement challenges. We settled a really ambitious contract so there's definitely hurdles were trying to work through, grievances we have to file, but I think the hardest thing —  and this is a multi-contract struggle we're going through — is that too many of our members work without a real path to job security and that's not going to get resolved in one contract alone.  

We continue to work away at that. A lot of the issues that face our members today that we end up waging struggles with our employer around come back to this central question about job security and professional respect. ... We represent a workforce where a large part of our employees are contingent; they're adjunct workers in or out of the classroom and that remains a multi-stage contract struggle. 

Our members want to know that their expertise is being honored in the workplace and that's really hard to do if you don't have stable and secure employment.