Last Friday afternoon, nearly 80 adjuncts and allies gathered at a meeting of the Committee of Adjuncts and Part-Timers at PSC headquarters to vote on three resolutions proposed by members and to hear from PSC President Barbara Bowen on the state of the contract negotiations.
President Bowen gave a lackluster “update” on the ongoing negotiations, providing no information that hadn’t already been emailed to the membership over a week ago. She reiterated the union’s tired strategy of lobbying Albany. There has been no response from management to the PSC’s sell-out counter-proposal. She claimed, without a shred of evidence, that the union was in a position to pressure the state and the city before the end of the legislative session on June 19th. As a member pointed out during the Q&A, the union, not management, is under pressure in this situation. Vice-President Andrea Vasquez, a longtime labor bureaucrat and former chair of the HEO chapter, used her time on the mic to tamp down expectations, telling members it was not possible to get everything at once and to depict the leadership as the vanguard in the fight for $7K/course for adjuncts.
In sharp distinction to the vague and unmoored leadership strategy, the rank and file delivered three strong resolutions on how to move forward. The first resolution addressed the need to reach out to working class New Yorkers across the city and organize a rally for $7K this fall. It passed nearly unanimously.
Amidst rumors, confirmed at the meeting by President Bowen, that the bargaining team is angling to force through another terrible summer contract, a second resolution called on the Delegate Assembly to postpone or table any vote on a proposed contract until after the summer, until it can guarantee a healthy debate about any proposed contract among all members of the union. Without holding a strike authorization vote, any proposed contract that failed to meet $7K should not be put to members for ratification. It also passed unanimously.
Finally, a third resolution outlined a strike authorization campaign the union could implement. Among many creative ideas, it proposed to convert of the duties of Adjunct Liaisons from simply meeting membership card quotas to organizing toward a strike, and to create an online fundraising platform to build a “militancy fund” to support members during a strike.
The meeting, which was the most highly attended in recent history, starkly revealed the poverty of the union leadership’s strategy. The rank and file are leading the way with a clear strategy, one that fits on a two-sided sheet of paper. Meanwhile, the leadership has already surrendered and is ready to sheepishly take advantage of the summer months to push through a contract that does not get adjuncts to $7K. The rank-and-filers in the room were of one voice, $7K or Strike!
cunystruggle.org 
P.S. I think that such a campaign at the local as well as DA level would be a powerful answer as well as antidote to Barbara Bowen’s current attitude, as expressed in her recent letter to PSC members, that we all just sit tight and let the “leadership” do the driving.
Thank you for presenting as “strong” CUNY Contingents United’s resolution addressing “the need to reach out to working class New Yorkers across the city and organize a rally for $7K this fall.” Now how about the Campaign for 7KOS joining with us in getting such a resolution passed at the local college chapter level, and at the upcoming Delegate Assembly meeting(s)?