Brooklyn College PSC-CUNY

BC adjunct faculty, joined by full-time faculty and student supporters, conducted a public Grade-In on Dec 11, the last Tuesday of Fall '18 classes.  Nearly 60 people lined the hallway outside the college President's office, grading student papers and exams.  In a quiet but poignant spectacle, they expressed solidarity and support for the $7K demand for adjuncts and a fair contract for CUNY employees.  Reporters from the Brooklyn Eagle and the Brooklyn Paper  covered the action.

BC Chapter Chair, James Davis, was among the 17 PSC elected leaders arrested outside the Dec 10 CUNY Board of Trustees meeting for civil disobedience.  They were participants in a 200-person demonstration against the Board's inaction on the State budget request and collective bargaining.

Passed at Nov 20, 2018 PSC Chapter meeting. Whereas adjuncts make up 61% of the faculty at CUNY and teach 53% of classes, at an average rate of $3,500 per three-credit class with no compensation for research or advising, amounting to an annual salary of $28,000 for the same courseload as full-time professors, who make $47,000 at the lowest step; Whereas adjunct poverty is detrimental to student success since adjuncts, who teach the majority of required courses, are forced to work additional jobs and consequently do not have the time they need and want to dedicate to their students; Whereas devaluing adjunct labor is the principal means of devaluing the labor of CUNY education workers across all titles ; Whereas the PSC has rightly put adjuncts at the center of the current contract campaign by demanding an adjunct minimum wage of $7,000 per three-credit course in the next contract;   Whereas $7K per course is still a poverty wage in New York City but is at lea...

The PSC has been organizing contingent and tenure-track faculty and professional staff around a contractual demand for $7,000 minimum per 3-credit course.  You can participate by using the resources below. "Press the Presidents" petition to Michelle Anderson Share your story / tell us why you support this demand PSC Fact Sheet on 7K CUNY Changes Lives Some important stats: * In 1975, CUNY had 250,000 students and 11,500 full-time faculty. Now it has 274,000 students but only 7,500 full-time faculty. * NYS funding per student at CUNY senior colleges has been cut by 18 percent since 2008. * There are now over 12,000 adjunct faculty in the CUNY system, up from 7,000 in the year 2000. That’s a 71% increase. * Adjunct faculty now teach 53% of CUNY courses, and as much as 65% at campuses like Hunter and John Jay. * The average annual salary for a CUNY adjunct lecturer teaching 8 courses is just $28,000 per year - far below an adequate standard of living in ...

Brooklyn College Faculty & Staff Testimony CUNY Board of Trustees hearing Baruch College, October 22, 2018 Coverage, including a photo of BC faculty holding a banner with thousands of signatures, is here . Heidi Diehl, Adjunct Lecturer, English Dept My name is Heidi Diehl, and I am an adjunct lecturer at Brooklyn College, where I have taught in the English Department since 2010. Thank you for your time today.   I speak on behalf of the 900 adjuncts at Brooklyn College and the 12,000 adjuncts who teach across CUNY. Indeed, adjuncts teach the majority of classes at CUNY. And although a CUNY education is advertised on the subway as a ladder to the middle class, the bitter irony is that we adjuncts, the bulk of CUNY’s teaching staff, are not part of the middle class because of CUNY’s poverty wages. I urge you, the Board of Trustees, to use your power to end this crisis of austerity. Request additional funding in your budget to increase adjunct pay to...

Prof's Ricardo Hernandez Anzola, Alex Juhasz, Carolina Bank Muñoz, and Joseph Entin  

https://www.facebook.com/events/184517132267477/

BC Faculty were among the nearly 100 PSC members who made the trip to Albany on April 24, 2018, to meet with 26 members of the NY State Assembly and Senate, urging their support for a major salary increase for CUNY adjunct faculty, who currently teach roughly 60 percent of our courses.  The demand is $7K minimum per 3-credit course, and the message was simple: Wage justice for the faculty, Educational justice for the students.  After lobbying visits, the PSC contingent rallies in the State Capitol Building  Gearing up for lobbying visits, BC faculty members Ramsey Scott, James Davis, Ken Estey, and Naomi Schiller.

Brooklyn College PSC collaborated with NYPIRG, NY Communities for Change, AFT, and other members of the CUNY Rising Alliance to host a public hearing on April 25, 2018, at the BC Library.  CUNY Students testified for over an hour and heard remarks from elected officials, including NY State Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte, City Council Members Inez Barron, Robert Holden, and Jumaane Williams (who sent remarks via community relations director Ernest Skinner), and NY City Public Advocate Letitia James.

On Monday, the CUNY Board of Trustees visited Brooklyn College for its annual Public Borough Hearing.  They got an earful inside and outside the Student Center on issues from campus facilities to adjunct salaries to control of student activity fees. NYPIRG President Smitha Vargese inveighs against unilateral action on student activity fees by Board of Trustees. Brooklyn College students make plain their demands, accompanied by Conservatory musician Allan Randall.

The PSC was out in full force at the February 24, 2018, National Workers Day of Action demonstration of solidarity at Foley Square, downtown Manhattan.

The PSC Executive Council approved the following resolution, to be voted on at the April 2018 annual Representative Assembly of the New York State United Teachers: NYSUT Members Support PSC’s $7K Campaign And All NYSUT Locals’ Campaigns for Fair Adjunct Pay Whereas, teachers’ unions were formed in order to demand and win professional pay and treatment for work that had previously been undervalued and viewed as non-professional; and Whereas, as teachers’ unions have multiplied and grown, they have expanded their work, winning better pay and treatment for other educational workers, for paraprofessionals and for others in service of the public good; and Whereas, in higher education, however, the past 40 years have seen a slow but devastating hollowing out of the profession, as public funding has been systematically reduced and universities and colleges have responded not by challenging the premise of austerity but by accommodating to scarcity: they have cut costs by...