Union members at State University of New York and City University of New York this week are putting a spotlight on the unequitable employment practices that harm students and professors alike.
Campus Equity Week, traditionally observed the last week of October, offers faculty and students the opportunity to express their strong dissatisfaction with the gross disparities in faculty pay, especially for non-tenure track faculty.
At SUNY Cortland, Jamie Dangler, Vice President for Academics at United University Professions, which represents SUNY faculty, attended a luncheon for adjuncts on Wednesday. UUP members at Buffalo State served up coffee, donuts and conversation in the Technology Building lobby.
Other CEW events on SUNY campuses this week include:
Thursday, Oct. 26
- SUNY Stony Brook: Membership meeting and lunch, Student Activities Center, Ballroom A, noon.
- SUNY Fredonia: Mask-making 9 a.m. 4 p.m., and again on Monday, Oct. 30, at McEwan Hall by Reed Library.
Friday, Oct. 27
- SUNY Cortland: March and rally, 3 p.m., lawn in front of Brockway Hall, at the top of campus. Tables will be set up in lobby of student life center with information to be distributed to students and faculty, with members urging them to tweet from the tables and attend the rally.
Monday, Oct. 30
- SUNY Geneseo: Open House for adjunct employees, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- SUNY Polytechnic: Distribution of CEW materials.
- SUNY Oneonta: Meet and Mingle for contingent faculty, 1:30 p.m. 3 p.m. Fitzelle Hall, in the Atrium, by Seasons Café. From 10 a.m. 4 p.m., Outdoor exhibit open to all campus community members, Upper Quad, between Fitzelle and Fine Arts with outdoor activities and games to promote CEW awareness.
Tuesday, Oct. 31: A National Day of Action
- UAlbany: Art show and reading to showcase work of contingent faculty, noon to 7 p.m., Fine Arts Building gallery, Room 223. Reception and reading 4 p.m.
At CUNY, Susan DiRaimo, Vice President for Part-time Personal at the Professional Staff Congress, which represents CUNY faculty, has been an adjunct professor at City College of New York since 1981. She will lead a tabling action and membership drive at CCNY. On Thursday, Oct. 26 she will take part in the chapter’s effort to give every adjunct a rose, a symbolic gesture in remembrance of the Bread and Roses strike in 1912.
The Brooklyn College Chapter (pictured above) rang in Campus Equity Week by getting hundreds of signatures to support the $7K minimum per course demand for adjunct faculty. Tabling continues this week. Next week calls for an adjunct membership blitz.
The PSC Delegate Assembly approved the union's 2017 Collective Bargaining Agenda. Among many other demands, the DA approved a demand for $7K per course minimum pay for adjunct faculty. Here's the relevant blurb from the preamble:
Adjunct pay: The clearest evidence of the decision by the State and City not to invest adequately in CUNY is the gross underpayment of half the teaching force — CUNY’s 11,000 teaching adjuncts. The PSC has made important advances for adjuncts on paid office hours, health insurance, and three-year appointments, but the central issue of pay remains. In this contract we pledge to address that issue by campaigning for a major increase in the CUNY operating budget to fund an increase in adjunct pay to $7,000 a course. Everyone who works at CUNY loses when anyone at CUNY can be paid substandard wages. A victory on adjunct pay would be a victory for the entire faculty and staff.