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CCNY'S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER   MAY 2000 VOLUME 2, NUMBER 5

New Caucus Stuns in PSC Election
by Hank Williams

Queens College English Professor Barbara Bowen has defeated incumbent Richard Boris in a stunning victory for the presidency of the Professional Staff Congress, the union that represents CUNY faculty and teaching assistants. In unofficial results, Bowen captured 58% of the vote to Boris’ 39%.

Following on Bowen’s coattails, Steven London, associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College, was voted first vice president; Cecelia McCall, associate professor of English at Baruch was voted Secretary; and John Hyland, professor of sociology at LaGuardia, was elected Treasurer. All are members of the New Caucus.

New Caucus candidate Eric Marshall was elected as vice president of part time personnel. Marshall has also been active in Adjuncts Unite!, an organization fighting for the rights of part-time teaching personnel (adjuncts).
New Caucus candidates also won all seats for both university and senior college at-large officers.
Unity Slate candidates (the old-guard incumbents) won both seats for cross campus at-large officers and the cross campus vice presidency. The new officers will assume their posts May 18th.

The election comes at a critical time for many reasons. One is that the PSC contract comes up for renewal this year. The latest issue of the PSC Clarion reported that current president Richard Boris indicated that pay increases to make CUNY salaries more competitive and guarantees of no further layoffs of full time faculty would be priorities. Chancellor Goldstein reportedly was not opposed, but replied that CUNY would seek productivity improvements in return.

Such “improvements” will likely be on the order of the ones already implemented at City that force professors to teach more classes; thereby increasing their workloads and reducing the time they can spend with students.
The New Caucus candidates ran on a slate emphasizing greater involvement of the union membership in union affairs, fighting for increases in full time faculty lines, better pay and benefits for adjuncts, and salary increases for all faculty. According to the PSC, CUNY faculty had two years without salary increases in the last contract, while the city and state have ended the decade with record surpluses.

CUNY has also cut full-time positions by 60% since 1974, while increasing adjuncts by 40%. As a result, adjunct faculty now teach nearly 60% of the classes in CUNY. Adjuncts are paid proportionately less money to teach than full-timers and have meager benefits packages and little job security. They are also not paid to hold office hours and usually are not assigned offices or phone lines, making it difficult for students to contact them for help and making it difficult for them to teach effectively.

The New Caucus has also taken active steps to defend CUNY against the attacks of the Giuliani and Pataki administrations and the Board of Trustees, including taking a strong stand in favor of preserving remedial classes.

The New Caucus sweep isn’t entirely surprising: New Caucus candidates ran unopposed at CCNY in the last chapter election and now control several campuses. City College English Professor (and Messenger advisor) Larry Hanley calls the New Caucus victory “the first real change in leadership within the PSC since its beginnings. What it really vindicates to me is how out of touch the PSC leadership has been with its constituents. . . less than a month ago at the Delegate Assembly Unity Slate delegates were booing Barbara Bowen, venting a lot of hostility, and basically trying to laugh her and the rest of the New Caucus off. The PSC is really going to change now.” Prof. Elizabeth Starcevic, who is the acting Chair of the PSC at City College also feels that “The union membership decided to vote for change.”

The big challenge for the New Caucus and the PSC now that a new direction has been chosen is to carry through on what they’ve promised. There is now an opportunity to build alliances with other unions and student groups to fight for an end to attacks on CUNY and on unions and the working class in general. It is only a few months since Mayor Giuliani viciously and illegally broke the resolve of the transit workers’ efforts to organize for better pay and working conditions with threats of severe penalties.

Now that the PSC membership has voted for change, the test will be whether or not they can deliver on that promise.

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