PSC Successfully Blocks New and Inferior Pension Tier at CUNY

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In December 2009, the PSC successfully blocked the imposition of an inferior pension tier (tier V) for new CUNY employees. The letter belowfrom, PSC President Barbara Bowen, tells how this victory was secured.

December 2, 2009

The thousands of messages you sent to Albany worked! CUNY faculty and staff represented by the PSC are not included in the lower pension tier passed today in Albany. This is a real victory for the PSC—and for the power and funds you put behind our political work.

The new Tier V reduces the value of future employees’ pensions, in part by requiring a contribution of at least 3 percent of salary throughout employees’ careers, not just for the first 10 years. It would also require 10 years of vesting, rather than the current 5 years—a change that would be especially disadvantageous to CUNY’s thousands of part-time faculty.

The PSC successfully made the case that introducing Tier V would damage CUNY’s ability to recruit and retain faculty and staff, because CUNY recruits nationally. We also showed that PSC members, along with other municipal union members, have already contributed $200 million toward deficit reduction as part of the Municipal Labor Committee agreement on health benefits with the City of New York.

Most telling, a lower pension tier will do very little to address New York State’s immediate deficit problem, as it achieves no real savings for ten years. There are alternative ways to close the budget gap, as the PSC officers have argued repeatedly before the Legislature.

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of calls for reduced pensions, but today’s agreement to exclude CUNY faculty and staff is testimony to the power of our collective action as a union. In holding out against the lower tier, the PSC withstood considerable pressure. My thanks go especially to our legislative representatives at NYSUT, who did an outstanding job of advocating for our position. I will update you again as we learn full details of the State budget actions on CUNY, also passed today; meanwhile, I send my thanks and congratulations.

Barbara Bowen
President, PSC