Our
stalled contract negotiations force us to rethink our strategies
of negotiation. Strategy, however, depends upon analysis and in
this I think we have been lagging. We need to ask ourselves: Who
is our actual boss? The BOT? The mayor? The governor? Who do these
politicians represent? How do such interests affect the choice of
Trustees?
For
example, on June 21, The New York Times reported campaign
fundraising which revealed real estate and construction interests
to be major contributors. Further research, including on the
Trustees, would surely uncover more corporate ties.
We should
also investigate the effect of the repeal of the U.S. estate tax
on the state contribution to CUNY. New York State will lose over
$1 billion of revenue, because the estate and inheritance taxes of
New York State are tied to the federal estate tax. We all know
what forces moved the politicians who legislated the repeal.
To move
forward, we need more political analysis on the question of
“Who’s the Real Boss of CUNY?”
Renate
Bridenthal
Brooklyn College
As PSC
President Barbara Bowen writes in the May Clarion, our current
two-pronged salary structure provides appropriate recognition of
merit — through peer-recommended promotion and through
step-based salary increases that reward experience.
The
“at-pleasure” pay system proposed by CUNY management is a
peculiar offspring of the classic business model. Having worked
for a private company for more than 20 years, I remember that
model clearly, and it worked well in its (appropriate) context.
That context was one of unified effort in support of the growth
and profitability of the enterprise: collaboration and
team-playing were valued, contradiction or even questioning of the
hierarchy were not.
CUNY
management seeks to make use of the business model in the academic
context, where contradiction and questioning are a basic part of
what we do. This puts freedom of inquiry at risk.
The last
PSC contract introduced ignominious “lump-sum” rewards, which
at our campus were allocated over the protests of the faculty at
large. There were hard feelings, especially among individuals who
had collaborated on projects, but were not equally rewarded —
who knows why? This experiment in rewarding the “meritorious”
was not repeated. Let’s do everything we can to protest this
renewed attempt to keep the CUNY faculty off-balance by
undermining our professional ideals and our solidarity.
Sally
Mettler
La Guardia
I was
happy that the dues restructuring proposal for full-time faculty,
described in the May 2001 Clarion, has now passed. No longer will
a first-year instructor pay the same dollar amount as a top-step
full professor.
However,
the proposed restructuring is still unfair to lower-paid faculty.
Even the Bush administration does not argue that someone earning
$30,000 should pay taxes at the same rate as another person
earning $90,000.
People
earning the lowest salaries should pay dues at a rate of about .5%
based on taxable income while those earning the highest salaries
should pay at a rate approaching 2%. If it turns out that union
revenues do not reach necessary levels, adjustments can be made
several months into the new academic year.
Elliot
Podwill
BMCC
I was
dismayed to discover that the upcoming fall term begins on August
27, with a full week of classes before Labor Day. Many of my
colleagues share my unhappiness about this schedule, to which the
union agreed. For many of us it will mean cutting family vacations
short. For those of us with school age children it poses a
particular problem, since most public and private schools do not
start until at least several days after Labor Day. Also, on some
campuses running a full course schedule during hot weather means
classes will be meeting in rooms with inadequate ventilation and
poor or no air-conditioning.
I hope
that the union does not again agree to allow fall classes to begin
before Labor Day, at least not without polling the full membership
on its views. I also hope that in the current contract
negotiations the union stands fast against any effort to dilute or
eliminate the important protection the current agreement gives us
against management scheduling fall term classes in August.
Joshua
B. Freeman
Queens College and the Graduate Center
PSC
First Vice President Steve London replies: The union Executive
Council agreed to the earlier start date because if we had kept to
the contractual starting date (Aug. 30), CUNY was prepared to
extend Fall semester exams well into January and extend Spring
semester exams into June. This is due to CUNY’s policy of
observing religious and ethnic holidays, and the days upon which
these holidays fall this year. By agreeing to this one-time-only
early start, we got CUNY to free up Labor Day Weekend (CUNY had
scheduled classes over this weekend), schedule all Fall exams
before Christmas, and all Spring exams before Memorial Day (almost
a week earlier than originally planned). In addition, we got a
permanent change in the contract so that annual leave for faculty
can begin in May (after “Spring” commencement) rather than as
it is now, after “June” commencement.
Ethan
Gologor’s essay objecting to the neglect of the material
conditions of work at CUNY—and hinting at the apparent lack of
interest in academic rigor—struck a resonant chord in this early
retiree’s heart. The union leadership must ensure that CUNY
staff and students receive adequate material conditions and
respect for intellectual expectations and accomplishments.
For years
before retiring in 1999 from the Lehman English Department, I felt
complicit in a huge scam. Many CUNY administrators and academics
seem to agree with the colonial headmaster in Somalia (paraphrased
by Mr. Gologor) that “maybe English grammar isn’t that
important.” I suspect that such attitudes conceal endemic
racism: English grammar isn’t that important to Somalis, African
Americans, Hispanics, and working-class people, who (it is
implied) can hardly be expected to talk or write like us
middle-class whites. Championing of CUNY students irrespective of
their achievement makes archaic liberals like Mr. Gologor and me
appear to be conservatives, just as anti-colonial enthusiasts
regarded his “imperialist” colleague in Somalia as a
conservative. My own research on higher education in Africa shows
that Africans were desperate to be accorded the same expectations
as students in the colonial mother countries. Too few CUNY staff
draw such conclusions.
Carol
Sicherman
Lehman (emerita)
Thank you
for the fine article on Debra Bernhardt’s Memorial Meeting. To
honor her work, your readers might want to contribute to The Debra
Bernhardt Fund for the Wagner Archives (where the PSC’s papers
are kept). Send checks made out to the fund to the Robert F.
Wagner Labor Archives, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY
10012.
Norah
C. Chase
Kingsborough
Letters to
the editor can be e-mailed to: psc-editor@att.net, They can also
be sent by regular mail to: Letters to The Editor, PSC, 25 W. 43rd
Street, New York, NY 10036; or faxed to: 212-302-7815. Letters
should be no more than 150-200 words in length, and are subject to
editing.
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