At the beginning of the semester, I told you that CUNY’s union was in the middle of contract negotiations, and that it was possible we would go on strike before the end of the semester. As of right now, I think that if a strike happens, it is more likely to happen in the spring than this semester, for reasons I will explain below.

But I wanted to update you on what’s going on, since the working conditions of CUNY faculty and staff impact your lives in various ways, and the funding of all of this definitely impacts tuition costs.

Additionally, about a quarter of all jobs in New York (the state, not the city) are union jobs, so it’s likely many of you will be represented by a union at some point. So, it can be helpful to learn a little about how these things work.

Yesterday, the PSC (that’s the name of the union, it stands for Professional Staff Congress) released what’s called the Memorandum of Agreement. Basically, it outlines all the stuff the bargaining team and CUNY management (along with the governor and the NYC mayor) agreed on.

For the next two weeks, each college is having meetings for members to discuss the contract, ask questions, and decide how we feel about it. On 11/7, the Delegate Assembly (that’s like the US Congress but for our union) will vote on whether or not to accept the contract. If they vote yes, then all the members get to vote on it, so the contract becomes real/official only if the members approve it.

Relevant Aspects of the Proposed Contract

1. Everyone gets a 2% raise each year (any raise is better than no raise, but because inflation is higher than 2% and the cost of living in NYC tends to go up even more than that each year, even though we will have higher numbers in our paychecks, our “real wages” (what your money can actually buy, your purchasing power) will still go down. So essentially we will have less money.
2. At the end of 2022, all adjuncts who don’t already make this much get a bigger raise at the end of 2022, resulting in $5500 per course. (Right now a brand new adjunct makes $3200 per course, and people who have been teaching longer make more.)  Even with these raises, most adjuncts would only make about $42,000 per year at that point if they work full time (right now it’s more like $30,000). That is already not a lot of money to live off of for NYC, but it’s also hard for adjuncts to even get hired for as many classes as they want, because CUNY is offering fewer sections of classes than in the past because of budget cuts.
3. Adjuncts will get paid for office hours, but they will also be required to hold office hours every week. So it’s more money, but for more required work. So it’s not really a raise.
4. No additional funding is provided by the state or the city

What Does This Mean For You?

Well, first,  it means just about all of your teachers (and advisors, and other CUNY staff you interact with) will be poorer relative to the cost of living than we already are. Money stress = less time and less emotional energy to put toward teaching.

But more importantly for you, they (CUNY administration) will probably raise your tuition to make up the difference. Governor Cuomo and Mayor deBlasio did not promise any additional funding from the state and the city, which means that in order to pay for the things in the contract (which aren’t even that good!), it has to come from either student tuition or budget cuts to existing things. Which means fewer resources for you.

For example, Nic was talking to me yesterday morning about how the ACE advisors have no space in their schedules to meet with students–because there really aren’t enough advisors to actually have time to give every student useful advice. Budget cuts would just make problems like that worse, not better.

What Happens Next?

Right now, everyone is arguing about whether or not the delegates should accept the contract and trying to convince each other. On 11/7, the delegates vote.

If they vote no, the contract has to be renegotiated.
If they vote yes, then the membership will vote on it sometime soon after, but with time for more discussion (my guess is the vote would be before Thanksgiving).

If membership votes yes, then the contract becomes official. I don’t know what the next step for activists will be if that happens.
If membership votes no, then the union bargaining team goes back to renegotiating the contract, and we will try to get the union leadership to call for a Strike Authorization Vote and get people to vote in favor of striking. I don’t know how long that process is likely to take.

What Can You Do?

If you want to get involved with these issues, there are a couple different things you can do.

1. Talk to your teachers about these issues! Even if that’s just asking what they think about it and listening to them. More discussion = more engagement, and more engagement makes the process more democratic and informed. Also, the more people are involved and knowledgeable about the situation, the more the administration will need to make real concessions, because if people are paying attention, they know people will be pissed if they try to screw us over.
2. Check out Free CUNY, an activist group that includes students. They have a lot more information on these topics and how they affect students, as well as how you can get more involved with different things going on.

If a Strike Does Happen at Some Point, What Does That Mean for Students?

Like I said, a strike might not happen at all, and if it does, I don’t know when. But that’s also definitely the most exciting part of all of this, even if it is only a maybe, so I wanted to talk a bit more about it.

A couple different things.

1. It means any of your teachers who are striking will not be holding regular class. So you could just stay home until the strike is over.
2. However, you can also join teachers on the picket line to add support to the strike.
3. Some teachers might hold “teach outs,” where your class meets but on the picket line itself to use the labor struggle as a learning opportunity.  (For example, if I was going to hold a teach out, I would ask all of you to make a protest sign for a CUNY-related issue of your choosing, and then write a short rhetorical analysis of why you designed your protest sign that way. Then while we were protesting, we would talk about the rhetorical strategies other people were using.)
4. Even if you have a teacher who is not striking, you can go on strike yourself! That doesn’t just mean skipping class, but telling your teacher and your classmates that that is why you are not attending, and joining in strike actions (like marching or picketing).