#WelcomeBackFightBack Spring 2022 newsletter
Here’s what you’ll find when you scroll down!
1. #WelcomeBackFightBack: Press Conference and #BrunchWithFelo Actions
2. Reportbacks from Official PSC Spring Semester Opening Actions: What’s Missing?
3. Solidarity with the Admissions Action at the Grad Center
1. #WelcomeBackFightBack: Press Conference and #BrunchWithFelo Actions
Faced with an increasingly dire health and labor situation at CUNY, Rank and File Action (RAFA) together with other CUNY community organizers are coming together to fight back! On Monday, January 24, RAFA organized a press conference and rally at the CUNY central office- the first of a series of actions as part of the #WelcomeBackFightBack Spring semester program. Co-sponsoring organizations include the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA) at CUNY Law, Free CUNY, Hostos Action Committee, Student Organization for Every Disability United for Progress (SOFEDUP) Club at Brooklyn College, Cross CUNY Working Group Against Racism and Colonialism, John Jay Student Council, Limited Equity & Affordability in Penn South (L.E.A.P.S.)/Chelsea Rising, United Front Committee for a Labor Party, Parents to Improve School Transportation (PIST NYC), NYC-YCL, National Writers Union-NY Chapter. The turnout for the rally and press conference was strong, despite the freezing cold weather.
Credit: Erik MGregor Photography, @Bike_at_W4 (Twitter) @ministererik (Instagram)
The #WelcomeBackFightBack series of actions continues on Saturday, February 5 with a noon #BrunchWithFelo rally and caravan at the CUNY chancellor’s home in Pelham, starting at 11:45am at the Pelham Metro North station. We hope you will be able to join us for this important action! RSVP at tiny.cc/CUNY2022, and share the FB event page at https://fb.me/e/2Mipy7gW8. Are you an adjunct who has lost classes, or who had other significant disruptions to the spring semester? Please tell us your story by filling out this (anonymous) form, and we will do our best to print out submissions and leave them at the chancellor’s doorstep!
Despite the ongoing public health crisis, CUNY continues to insist on a return to 70% in-person instruction and work for the Spring semester. Workers and students are faced with the choice of risking exposure to the virus or losing their job/dropping out of college.
The “CUNY administration is failing our students; the state is failing our students,” said Naomi Schiller from the Brooklyn College Antiracism Committee (ARC). “Austerity only becomes acceptable to our elected and appointed leaders because our majority students of color do not have the power, resources, and lobbyists required to get what they need and deserve.”
CUNY administration (in)actions have led to a cataclysmic drop in enrollment. Community colleges are currently at 58% of last year’s enrollment figures, and senior colleges at 84%. In the face of this, CUNY administrators have responded with extreme callousness, encouraging mass course cancellations and in some departments effectively firing all adjuncts who don’t currently have a three-year appointment. Hundreds of people face losing their jobs, with new cancellations announced daily.
As Alex Pellitteri from Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA)- Hunter Branch explained: “With so many millionaires and billionaires in this city, and with some college presidents making nearly half a million, it’s not a question of if we have enough money to fully fund CUNY, it’s a question of whether we are willing to spend it on CUNY.”
Rank and File Action joins concerned CUNY students, workers, and community members in calling for action now to demand:
No class cancellations, no layoffs! Use federal pandemic funding to keep all classes open, all students enrolled, and all staff and faculty employed.
Respond to student demands by providing more online course options and meeting accessibility needs.
Allow staff and faculty to work remotely on request, in accordance with student needs--cancel the arbitrary mandate to keep 70% of classes and staff time in-person.
Prioritize safety: provide detailed ventilation information, free medical-grade masks, and free rapid testing/home tests for all students, staff, and faculty.
Full public funding of free tuition and support services for students, including mental wellness and accessibility; full transparency on how CUNY spends pandemic relief funds.
Speaking on behalf of Free CUNY, Marianne Madoré summarized the demands of the organizers: “we demand that CUNY prioritize safety for all students, staff and faculty: no class cancellations, no layoffs, courses that meet accessibility needs, and above all full public funding for CUNY, for free tuition, cop-free campuses, mental wellness and accessibility.”
#WelcomeBackFightBack: Press Conference Speeches
In case you missed it, have a look at some of the 🔥 🔥 speeches and chants from the press conference here!
Check out media coverage of our #WelcomeBackFightBack actions:
“Nic Nicoludis Demands CUNY Change Mandate, Rehire Adjuncts,” The Indypendent
“As CUNY opens for spring semester on Friday, tensions continue to rise,” BX Times
“Cuny Rank-and-File Activists Fight for Safe Reopening,” Left Voice
2. Official PSC Spring Semester Opening Actions: What’s Missing?
Cross Chapter Meeting for Campus Action Teams
On Wednesday, January 26, PSC leadership hosted a cross-chapter meeting for representatives of Campus Action Teams (CATs). The CATs are part of the union’s Strategic Action Plan, which centers around lobbying for the New Deal for CUNY (ND4C) and organizing in preparation for bargaining for a new contract in 2023. In the breakout room report-backs, many people shared that health & safety/reopening issues were the biggest concern among members, and it is these topics that people were the most willing to mobilize around. As for meeting the CAT team representation and mobilization targets laid out in the Strategic Action Plan for the next ND4C action planned for March 5, many people reported that HEOs and CLTs on their campuses feel like the union is too focused on faculty concerns and does not do a good job representing staff interests. Therefore, getting HEOs and CLTs interested in participating in CATs and attending the action in March will be more difficult. Many people voiced concerns about a lack of political education and communication— if people do not know what’s happening on our college campuses or why different actions are important, how can they be expected to mobilize? Some members spoke of the energy they felt at the December 11 rally in Queens, and the disappointment that this energy was not channelled towards escalating action. We are not getting what we are demanding as a union, yet members are told to send form letters, sign petitions, and tweet, which is demobilizing. Even worse, there is no followup or escalation with these virtual actions; one petition or tweet storm follows another and we never hear about outcomes, so the whole thing gets forgotten instead of being integrated into a strong and escalating campaign.
PSC Rallies at Bronx Community College and Medgar Evers
Just 10 minutes before RAFA’s Jan. 24 rally and press conference at CUNY Central began, PSC members received an email from union president James Davis announcing that simultaneous rallies would be held that Friday, January 28–the first day of the spring semester for most CUNY campuses–at Bronx Community College and at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. The surprise announcement followed a contentious Delegate Assembly (DA) meeting the previous Thursday, where many attendees expressed serious concerns about the lack of escalation by the union in the face of impending adjunct layoffs, course cancellations, and overall CUNY chaos. Several delegates urged the PSC leadership to back RAFA’s scheduled actions, since it at that point had none planned of its own.
Nevertheless, RAFA members promoted and joined the PSC’s rallies on January 28. PSC members rallied at 12:30pm at the front gates of Bronx Community College, one of the campuses hardest hit by the racist austerity gripping CUNY. It is not surprising that the first guest speaker at the rally was a NY politician, and not a laid-off adjunct or a struggling student. RAFA members and other militant union members were there with signs that said: “Faculty, Students and Staff – Unite and STRIKE Against Racist Austerity.” This is the same message we will take to the Chancellor’s house on Saturday, February 4, and we hope you will join us!
At the same time, about 40 PSC members turned out at Medgar Evers college in Brooklyn to protest the inability of the administration to provide a safe return to campus. This comes after reports that HVAC facilities are not operational at the college, and that CUNY is not providing appropriate precautions for those returning to in-person work and learning. There are also widespread reports of class cancellations, including anecdotes about classes being cancelled as the classes were in session. From the PSC, President James Davis, Treasurer Felicia Wharton, and Medgar Evers Chapter Chair Clinton Crawford spoke on the structural issues at the college, while District 35 Council Member Crystal Hudson spoke about the role of the college in local life and the racism associated with its underfunding. No students or other faculty or staff from Medgar were asked to speak. The crowd then marched across the road to the office of college president Patricia Ramsey, who was in a labour management meeting with Dr. Crawford, and chanted with cowbells and megaphones for the ensuring of a safe return. They then marched back, where Davis gave summary remarks. RAFA members who were present called for people to attend the #BrunchwithFelo action for a more militant demonstration of labor’s power.
3. Admissions Action at the Grad Center
RAFA stands in solidarity with the Concerned Coalition of CUNY Graduate Neuroscientists in their demand to get paid on time! We are glad to see that the GC President, Robin L. Garrell, has responded with a step in the right direction by stating in a February 1 letter that the administration is “committed to resolving the situation for the students who are impacted now, and also preventing problems going forward”. Any plans to resolve this situation must include full consultation with the Concerned Coalition of CUNY Graduate Neuroscientists! We also recognize that this is a structural issue that impacts graduate students in many departments and needs to be systematically addressed. All CUNY workers and students deserve to be paid on time!
Concerned Coalition of CUNY Graduate Neuroscientists Statement:
Across the City University of New York (CUNY) bench science graduate programs, 75% of graduate workers experience significant delays in payment while obtaining their doctoral degree. CUNY STEM PhD students are guaranteed a ~30k stipend plus health insurance for 5 years. Despite repeated efforts by graduate workers to bring these systematic issues to the attention of CUNY administration to this problem, which has existed for nearly a decade, no action has been taken to solve it.
These issues are pervasive, demoralizing, and affect not only the financial, but mental well-being of those in the student body. To ascertain whether funding issues were problematic, in a poll of CUNY Biology graduate workers in early 2021, 32% of graduate respondents were behind on pay, and 70% reported having had issues in the past. Of that 70%, more than two thirds reported that it had taken over 3 months to fix the issue. Because resolving lapses in pay takes months, CUNY graduate workers are often left with a Hobson’s choice between taking out loans or facing credit debt. In the same poll, an alarming 72% of respondents reported that their mental health was worsened by payment related issues. Just as alarming is that 17% of those polled reported unintended gaps in their healthcare during a pandemic as paychecks are directly tied to health insurance (NYSHIP) appointments.
These data reflect pervasive financial mistreatment of graduate workers at CUNY who are already paid significantly less than other metropolitan graduate workers, especially those in New York City. Despite this continuous mistreatment by CUNY administration, we have continued to conduct benchwork, teach classes, publish papers, obtain grants, mentor students, and positively amplify the program. We interpret this lack of action by administration as signifying the apathy the CUNY administration has towards the well-being of its graduate workers.
CUNY graduate workers cannot strike due to the Taylor law, unlike Columbia graduate students who recently won their strike. Nevertheless, we are forced to escalate the recognition of ongoing funding problems. Hence, we have decided to withhold voluntary labor; 95% of neuroscience PhD student respondents stated that they will not be participating in 2022’s admissions season. As many may know, graduate programs rely on current students during admissions season. We, the graduate workers, are vital in recruiting new students to the program, and this is done via positively amplifying the program, speaking about life in NYC, etc. If we cannot be compensated for the work we are paid to do, then it is unwise of us to further volunteer our time on behalf of the program. Secondly, we do not believe that we can act as good faith advocates for CUNY in representing the program, as we would be obligated to inform prospective students of CUNY’s mistreatment towards their graduate workers.
As this has been a pervasive and systematic problem for nearly a decade with no end in sight. We have collectively decided to make this a public concern. Currently, CUNY administration is well aware of these systematic issues and have not yet made any substantial action towards their alleviation.
Signed,
Concerned Coalition of CUNY Graduate Neuroscientists
Get Involved!
Here are ways for you get involved, even if you can’t make it to #BrunchWithFelo!
Share information about our actions on social media! If you tag Rank and File Action in your posts we will retweet/like/etc.
Donate to Rank and File Action so that we can cover the costs of travel for those able to make it to the #BrunchWithFelo action!
https://www.rankandfileaction.com/donate
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