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CONTRACT BULLETIN #1

REPORT ON AUGUST 23 NEGOTIATIONS

The PSC and the City University of New York held the first collective bargaining session of the 2000 contract on August 23rd. At the session, the PSC engaged in discussion of preliminary matters with representatives of the City University and presented the following statement.

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

The contract proposals of the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY offer a new vision of the City University of New York. They propose a restoration of the conditions of professional academic life that will enable CUNY to return to national prominence. They propose a university that will break new ground in offering higher education to a great urban population. There is nothing piecemeal or incremental about the PSC's vision -- we present a bold program to fashion the urban public university New York deserves. At a moment when economic prosperity places a new approach to CUNY within reach, the PSC invites the Administration to become our partner in rebuilding the University.

The City University of New York is the largest, oldest, and most visible urban university in the United States. It remains one of the spectacular success stories in the history of higher education. Nationally, CUNY has been the leader in expanding educational access without compromising academic standards; long before the post-War education boom, CUNY recognized the value of extending higher education to those who had conventionally been excluded because of income, religion, race or gender. The University's history has shown the wisdom of that commitment: not only have our graduates contributed in countless ways to public life, but they have worked in partnership with faculty and staff to create new knowledge and expand the frontiers of research. After a quarter century of difficult times, CUNY remains the home of educational innovation and cutting-edge scholarship. Its faculty and professional staff are among the most productive in the American academic community.

Yet twenty years of massive economic losses have taken their toll. The conditions necessary for professional work within a university have been allowed to deteriorate to levels that endanger the fabric of the institution. A serious university must offer time for research, it must provide fully-staffed libraries and counseling faculties, it must support the professionals who run its labs and program its computers. Without a commitment to ongoing professional life, a university becomes a trade school; it loses the single distinguishing characteristic of an institution of higher leaning. We do not want this to happen to the City University. The people of New York deserve more. The way to revitalize CUNY is not to add a flagship program here and a selective college there; it is to restore decent professional conditions to the entire faculty and staff. Only with such conditions in place can we ensure credibility as an academic institution and regain the reputation we once enjoyed. If CUNY is to remain the great public university the people of this city need, it must reinvigorate its faculty and professional staff by crafting an agreement that embraces the following principles:

The mechanisms of shared governance must be restored. Toward this end the PSC seeks the right to negotiate all changes in the University that affect the terms and conditionslof employment of its members.

The faculty and staff must be renewed, and erosion of salary in both absolute and relative terms must be reversed. The PSC seeks substantial salary increases in every year of the contract and special increments at the top and bottom of the salary scales to restore lost competitiveness,

Salary inequities that have been allowed to develop during years of underfunding must be remedied. The PSC seeks pay and benefits for adjuncts on the basis of parity with full-time faculty and proposes one-time increments for staff titles that have suffered particular salary erosion.

Teaching loads for faculty and workloads for professional staff must be made comparable to those at other research universities, or Doctoral-Extensive institutions, to use the new Carnegie classification. The PSC seeks substantial reductions in teaching loads at both the senior and community colleges, and calls for compensation for overtime work for professional staff.

Professional life and academic development for both faculty and staff must be supported. The PSC seeks research funding, sabbatical leave, junior faculty leave, protection of workers' health and safety and other requisites of professional life at a level that makes contribution to scholarship possible.

The proposals we present are advanced with an exceptional degree of support by the University's faculty and professional staff. They are the result of the most extensive development process ever undertaken by the PSC. Representatives of every sector of the University met for weeks to discuss possible proposals; the PSC conducted research among its members and on best practices nationally; the final set of demands was accepted unanimously by the union's Delegate Assembly. The support PSC members showed for a new union leadership is also testimony to the commitment to rebuilding CUNY. It speaks of the widespread recognition among the instructional staff that our professional life must be restored if we are to offer quality education to the people of New York.

But a serious university costs money: the PSC proposals are in part a call for reinvestment in CUNY. There may never be another opportunity like the one before us to make the case for the investment a great university requires. Both the state and city are enjoying budget surpluses, and public recognition of the value of higher education has never been more widespread. New York above all, with a resurgent economy increasingly based on information and technology, should have a premiere urban university. The PSC's proposals would recreate CUNY, making it the first-choice institution for New York's middle class as well as the primary university for the city's poor and working class. The vision we seek to put in place will demand courage; it asks for a commitment to public life as bold as the one that created Central Park or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a new union leadership and a new Chancellery, we are in a position to negotiate a landmark agreement. Together, we are in a position to create a university that will define urban public education for generations to come and become one of the major public achievements of New York City. The PSC is prepared to build such a university; we ask the Administration to join us in that work.