The
Professional Staff Congress bargaining team sat down with CUNY
management in May and laid out a comprehensive case for the
union’s salary demands. Exhibit A was this simple fact: in the
last three decades, CUNY salaries have declined by as much as 30%
or 40% after inflation. Some titles have seen their real pay drop
by almost half.
“For
most members, these numbers come as a shock,” said PSC President
Barbara Bowen. “We all know our salaries are too low—but how
many of us knew that their value had fallen by this much?”
One goal
was to force a discussion of salary issues, in the face of
management’s refusal to make an economic offer after 9 months
and 15 sessions of negotiations. On June 21 CUNY management
finally put a salary proposal on the table—but the terms of the
offer underscore how far apart the two sides remain.
Management’s proposal called for compounded increases of 2%, 2%
and 2.5% over three years, an amount that Bowen termed
“insulting to our members.” As of May 2001, the annual
inflation rate in the New York metro area was 3.3%.
Double
Decline
“Our
salaries have eroded in a double sense,” said First Vice
President Steve London. “First, we have lost ground relative to
what we used to get paid. Second, we have become less competitive
with other institutions of higher education.”
In 1972,
the top salary of a Professor was worth $124,448 (in current
dollars) while today it is just $86,619. The bottom Assistant
Professor/HEO step paid $53,059 in 1972, in current dollars; this
has now fallen to $32,703, so low that it is difficult or
impossible to hire anyone at that rate. For Lecturers, CLTs,
Assistants to HEOs and others, the story is the same. In real
dollars, PSC members have experienced losses of up to 30% at the
top of the salary scale and up to 40% at the bottom. A few titles
have fared even worse: the bottom salary for Assistants to HEOs
has seen a 48% decline. College Laboratory Technicians, a position
requiring a high skill level, can almost no longer be recruited on
the existing salary schedule. (Click HERE
for chart)
PSC
members can see how much their own titles have dropped by checking
the full list of figures on the union Web site, at
www.psc-cuny.org.
“What
has happened to our salaries is a scandal,” said Bowen. “The
PSC’s wage analysis is the first time that these facts have been
laid out for public view.” In this sense, she said, the salary
analysis is parallel to the union’s “budget book,” which
detailed the drastic cuts in government funding of CUNY since the
1970s. “The facts can be painful to confront,” Bowen added.
“Certainly CUNY management does not like to discuss them. But we
won’t be partners in covering them up. To do so would be to
collaborate in undermining our own profession and the University
itself.”
CUNY
Loses Ground
While
CUNY’s faculty and staff were losing ground, higher education
salaries elsewhere were growing. Salaries for continuing faculty
were up by 30.5% in real terms from 1971 to 2000, according to the
American Association of University Professors. “Many members
remember the ‘good old days’ when CUNY salaries were
considered to be among the top in higher education,” said
London. “Today, that is far from true.”
In 2000,
CUNY senior college salaries of professors averaged $83,758. In
contrast, NYU and Columbia professors averaged over $120,000,
Rutgers New Brunswick professors averaged $102,400 and SUNY Stony
Brook professors averaged $93,800. CUNY community college
professors averaged $80,179—compared to $87,200 at Westchester
Community College and $85,100 at Passaic County Community College.
As a
result of such gaps, said Bowen, “we’re bleeding talent at the
top, and can’t recruit people at the bottom.” Because CUNY is
no longer competitive at the top or the bottom of the salary
scale, PSC contract proposals call for eliminating the bottom
steps, adding steps to the top, and lifting the entire salary
structure with across-the-board increases. “As we begin a new
cycle of faculty and staff hiring,” said London, “we need to
rebuild our salary structure so that we can again recruit a new
cohort of top scholars, teachers, technicians, and staff. The
union’s contract proposals are geared to do just that.”
These
figures actually understate the decline in CUNY faculty’s wages,
since over the same three decades there was a wholesale shift
towards running the university with cheaper part-time employees.
Parity pay for adjunct faculty has been a key part of the PSC’s
salary demands. “All our members deserve a fair and decent
salary, and this should be reason enough to win parity for
adjuncts in this contract,” said London. “But cheap adjunct
labor has also allowed CUNY management to reduce the number of
full-time faculty and keep full-time salaries low.” Throughout
the country, he noted, when adjunct salaries have increased,
full-time salaries have also gone up. “This common interest is
why the PSC sees parity as a high priority,” London said.
Susan
Lerner -- www.susanlernerphoto.com
"Free
CUNY." a new group of students, faculty and staff hung
banners from Graduate Center to support PSC's picket outside
negotiations.
In one
respect, the management wage offer was a step forward: you can’t
have a discussion when only one side is willing to talk. For
months CUNY management had refused to give an economic proposal
unless the PSC took some of its demands off the table. “Why
should we give up something for nothing?” responded PSC
University-wide Officer Stanley Aronowitz, a member of the
union’s negotiating team. Aronowitz told Clarion the union was
willing to reduce its demands “if we see some movement,” but
not if there was nothing to gain in return.
Union
Demands an Offer
At rallies
and informational pickets, in leaflets at Graduation, in press
interviews and at the bargaining table, the union demanded to know
why management would not make an economic offer. Chancellor
Goldstein and then-Board Chairman Badillo responded to the PSC’s
April 23 rally by saying, “We are eager to achieve agreements in
the near future, so that the dedicated employees of the University
can benefit from new contracts.” On June 20, the union announced
a picket at the Board of Trustees meeting the following week to
protest the lack of an offer, and asked, “If they are so eager,
why haven’t they offered a single penny in salary increases
after months of negotiations?” The next day, management put its
offer on the table.
“I think
they just wanted to be able to say that they had made some kind of
offer,” commented PSC Secretary Cecelia McCall. “They were
really starting to look bad. But the offer doesn’t even start to
make up the ground that we’ve lost.” President Bowen agreed,
pointing out that management’s offer falls far short in other
ways. “It offers nothing on parity between part-time and
full-time employees, even though other universities are now
addressing the issue,” Bowen said, “and it fails to address
what is at stake in addition to salary.” In particular, she
emphasized, it offers nothing on reducing workload for faculty and
other instructional staff, which has been a central component of
the union’s demands.
“In
effect,” said Bowen, “this salary offer is a signal that
University management does not believe the working people of New
York deserve a serious research university. What’s at stake in
these negotiations is the future of the University.”
Support
at Graduation
The union
sees increased public pressure as the only way to convince CUNY
management to offer more. If the response to PSC organizing at
CUNY Graduations is any measure, the PSC has a lot of potential
support. Most students and family members were glad to wear PSC
stickers that read, “Education is a Right / Fund CUNY / PSC
Contract Now,” and many came back to ask for more. When CUNY
management negotiator Brenda Malone took the stage at Queens
College and looked out at the sea of caps and gowns, it had to
give her pause: at least two-thirds of the graduates were wearing
the pro-union stickers.
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