CUNY Union Protests on Staten Island

By FARAZ T. TOOR

PSC-CUNY protests for a new labor contract and a tuition freeze shifted to the College of Staten Island on Thursday, the first time a rally over the contract and other grievances has taken place at the college since the last contract expired. More than five years ago.

“Last summer I spoke to an adjunct professor who had to go on food stamps,” said John Lawrence, a CSI psychology professor. “If we want a first class city, the people who teach need to be paid.”

The Professional Staff Congress, the union that represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York, has held protests throughout the city over the past few months for a raise in pay, tuition freeze, adjunct job security, retroactive payand other demands.

The union also has raised the stakes in negotiations recently by asking the membership to vote for a strike authorization, despite the Taylor Law, banning strikes by state employees.

But according to three protestors who were on-hand Thursday, two of whom who have been professors at the college for more than 13 years, these rallies had never occurred at CSI.

About 50 people—a mix of CSI faculty, a few students, union officials, and more than a dozen representatives from DC37, the union for 770 support staff workers at the college, such as administrative assistants—marched around a fountain behind the Center for Arts building.

Passerby students watched as the protestors carried signs that decried the fact that they do not have a contract and evoked other grievances.

“Education is a right! Fight! Fight! Fight!” they chanted.

“It’s a great idea,” said Mafanta Kajakhe, a sophomore pre-med student, who passed by and recorded the protest. “If I’m going to school, I should have the best. Why is tuition rising if professors are getting paid the same?”

Brandon Yen, a junior who protested Thursday, said he was surprised so few students joined him but felt positive about his efforts.

“This should overall improve the quality of the campus. That’s something people should want,” Yen said. “I hope [students] are listening.”

Another student indeed was listening.

“I don’t think it’s fair. They’re teachers, they got families,” said Ariel Then, a freshman, about the faculty’s and staff’s contract status. “It’s extremely rude.”

A month after they planned the protest, according to George Emilio Sanchez, the college’s chapter chairman and professor in the Department of Performing and Creative Arts, the protestors Thursday called on the college’s president, William Fritz, and CUNY Chancellor James Milliken, to give them the previously mentioned features of a new contract and to freeze tuition.

Sanchez said that while Fritz “has expressed nothing but support” for the union’s efforts to settle the contract, the protestors wanted to get CUNY’s attention.

CUNY can negotiate the contract with its employees, but a contentious debate continues to ensue over how to fund raises, retroactive pay, and PSC-CUNY’s other demands. According to the union, Governor Andrew Cuomo has indicated that CUNY will have to pay for any salary increases out of its operating budget.

New York State, however, provides the majority of CUNY’s funding. While the state did allocate more money to CUNY in the Fiscal Year 2015-16 State Enacted Budget, the university argues that this did not include funding for “$51 million of University-mandatory cost increases, including those associated with fringe benefits, contractual salary increments, energy, and building rental costs.”

But Thursday’s protestors said, as they have said in the past, that does not absolve Milliken and CUNY of their responsibilities to their employees.

“They need to go to the governor and demand more funding,” Sanchez said. “In the big picture, the governor has to pay attention.”

Many students who watched the protest Thursday said they would love to see a tuition freeze, but they were skeptical that it would ever occur.

“It’d be very important, but it’s unlikely to happen,” freshman Straw Wallace said. “They need to at least fill up half the square,” he said in reference to the fountain square in which the Thursday protest occurred.

“I feel skeptical about it because it takes time,” Kajakhe said. “The acceptance rate is rising, so I don’t see how it can happen.”

A tuition freeze would have to be subsidized by one or multiple sources, which almost certainly would have to include the city, state, and federal government.

“It is definitely possible,” Sanchez said in response to student skepticism. “For it to happen right away, it looks grim, but it is possible.”

“New York used to have free public education at CUNY, and I think we need to go back to that,” Lawrence said. “Education is a human right. A tuition freeze is the first step towards free education.”

“The College of Staten Island strongly supports CUNY Chancellor James B. Milliken and the University’s administration in working to obtain a fair contract with faculty and staff,” CSI said in a statement. “Ensuring the success of our students is a top priority. 76 percent of our students graduate debt-free and 60 percent attend with full financial aid packages, making their tuition at no cost to them. We will continue to work with CUNY, fulfilling our mission to help educate the people of Staten Island, New York, the region, and the world.”