PSC Continues Fight for Adjunct Rights

By Heather Gautney

“The glass is half full, but I wouldn’t mind a refill.” The phrase is from a billboard somewhere in Manhattan’s infinite universe of advertisements, and it came to mind as I was walking the campus of New York University the other day. Looking at the well-kept buildings and hearing romantic tales of wonderful teaching situations offered to graduate students, I couldn’t help but think, “So this is how the other half lives.”

Every CUNY student knows what I mean, and adjuncts, even more so. While basic provisions such as tuition waivers and remission for university workers are a norm at other major universities, CUNY graduate students must struggle to balance heavy work schedules with doctoral research, all within a general context of increasing economic hardship. Adjuncts, many of them doctoral students, teach without job security, without basic benefits or pay parity, and without adequate office space or equipment.

In the last couple of years, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC)—the union of faculty and students—has worked diligently to protect the university and its community from an all-out drought. As part of the fall 2002 contract, the PSC won paid office hours and one-year appointments for adjuncts. It also agreed to split with the university the cost of one year of tuition remission for graduate assistants—an act of good faith by the administration and a starting point for the union from which to fight for increased support. The PSC also organized this past spring and summer to lobby legislators in Albany, and to champion the fight against tuition hikes and for tuition remission.

Most recently, in a joint effort with the Doctoral Students Council (DSC), the PSC has been instrumental in forcing CUNY to implement a new scholarship program, which will begin this year. This program is aimed primarily at recruiting new students, but also benefits current teachers as well—specifically those receiving Graduate Teaching Fellowships, Gilleece or Science Fellowships. The program is set to expand over the next five years, and eventually will support 40% of Graduate Center students (details on the program are available in the September 2003 issue of the Advocate and in the sidebar on page XXXX).

While this effort is an important index of support for graduate students by both the union and the administration, for most of us, the glass remains less than half full. Those who will be eligible for tuition remission this year must still struggle to secure health services and adequate living conditions, all while balancing the rigorous demands of doctoral work with heavy teaching loads and substandard working conditions. The mass of students who don’t teach at CUNY face a similarly grave situation as they engage in other forms of precarious work, without job security, equitable wages, or union protection.

The PSC will take up a number of these issues as it enters into negotiations for the new contract. On its list of demands, the PSC is seeking tuition waivers for all CUNY graduate students employed by the university and for their immediate family members and domestic partners, as well as increased access to tuition waivers for part-time instructional staff. The key to this demand, at least in print, is that it is aimed at gaining across-the-board support for students employed by the university, regardless of status (in-or out-of-state) and location in the employment structure of the university.

The union is also seeking significant improvements in the provision of health care to part-time workers and graduate assistants, as well as salary increases across the board and pay parity for adjuncts. Other demands include

* the formation of a labor-management committee to develop a plan during the course of

negotiations for the movement of part-time faculty into new full-time faculty positions

* sick leave for both teaching and non-teaching adjuncts

* University support for the professional development of part-time workers

* adequate office space and equipment

A condensed list of PSC demands is available at http://dsc.gc.cuny.edu/adjunct_project.htm, while a more detailed list was published in the May/June 2003 issue of The Clarion. While the union has worked—and will continue to work—toward the improvement of university life at CUNY on a number of levels, its efforts must be supplemented by student mobilization.

The key issue has been and remains the question of true tuition remission. The DSC is actively organizing to fill the gaps posed by the new scholarship program. At the end of October, the DSC will work together with the PSC to celebrate Campus Equity Week at the Graduate Center. Campus Equity Week (CEW) involves nationwide coalitions of students and faculty throughout higher education, and focuses on raising awareness about the negative impacts of contingent academic employment practices on the welfare of higher education. These include a variety of overlapping issues: academic quality, public policy, fiscal support, working conditions, benefits, and pay equity issues.

While students must support the PSC as it enters into this next round of contract negotiations, we must also attempt to reformulate old questions: namely, to build across-the board institutional support for doctoral students, regardless of the particular type of services they provide to the University. This is, in fact, what the City University of New York is supposed to be about.

Amid all the excitement for the new scholarship program, one wonders whether it isn’t just another bone being thrown at students to delegitimize demands for the refill: that the City University of New York be free, in every sense of the word. With its stated focus on the problem of corporatization in the university—which ultimately threatens the very basis of public education—Campus Equity Week is a golden opportunity to get involved.

Heather Gautney is the 2002-2003 DSC Adjunct Coordinator and a graduate student in the sociology department. She can be reached at 212-817-7890 or email, hgautney@gc.cuny.edu, or during office hours (Room 5489): Weekdays (by appointment and Wednesdays (1pm – 4pm). For PSC membership, visit Room 5489 or the PSC website at www.psc-cuny.org.

Announcement: For October 31 of this year, the Doctoral Students Council and the PSC are making plans for CEW. There will be a seminar on “Preparing to Apply for a Full-Time Job” set for October 31, 10am -1 pm, followed by Lunch from 1-2:30, a Film Festival from 2:30-4:30, and an after-party.

BLURB:

Amid all the excitement for the new scholarship program, one wonders whether it isn’t just another bone being thrown at students to de-legitimize demands for the refill: that the City University of New York be free, in every sense of the word.