A Balanced Slate with Deep Roots In the Membership:
A Letter from Barbara Bowen
Representing Newer and Experienced Leaders, Faculty, HEOs and CLTs, Full- and Part-Time
April 2006
Dear Colleagues,
Barbara Bowen
President
Associate Professor
Queens College
Steve London
First Vice President
Associate Professor
Brooklyn College
Arthurine DeSola
Secretary
Higher Education Assistant
Queensborough CC
Michael Fabricant
Treasurer
Professor
Hunter College
University-Wide Officers
Stanley Aronowitz (GS)
Jonathan Buchsbaum (Queens)
Lorraine Cohen (LaGuardia CC)
John Pittman (John Jay)
Nancy Romer (Brooklyn)
Senior College Officers
Robert Cermele (NYCCT) – VP
Kathleen Barker (Medgar Evers) – Officer
Marilyn Neimark (Baruch) – Officer
Alex Vitale (Brooklyn) – Officer
Community College Officers
Anne Friedman (BMCC) – VP
Jacob Appleman (QCC) – Officer
Lizette Colón (Hostos) – Officer
Susan O'Malley (KCC) – Officer
Cross Campus Officers
Iris DeLutro (Queens) – VP
Donna Gill (Hunter) – Officer
Steven Trimboli (Lehman) – Officer
Vera Weekes (Medgar Evers) – Officer
Part-Time Officers
Marcia Newfield (BMCC) – VP
Susan DiRaimo (CCNY) – Officer
David Hatchett (Medgar Evers) – Officer
Diane Menna (Queens) – Officer
Retiree Officers
Peter Jonas – Officer
Jim Perlstein – Officer
New Caucus
Park West Finance
P.O. Box 20678
New York, NY 10025
The New
CAUCUS
In early April, you’ll be receiving a ballot for the union election. As your union president, I want to speak above the noise
of this election. I am writing to you because your vote matters
and because there is only one serious choice for PSC leadership: the New Caucus.
It is critical to vote in this election and to re-elect the New Caucus.
What Is the New Caucus?
The New Caucus began more than ten years ago, in 1995, as
a group of faculty and staff from across the University who
shared one thing: the belief that CUNY was worth fighting for,
and that improving our working conditions was part of that
fight. All of us had histories of fighting for our students and
for a vision of what the City University could be. We believed
that substandard conditions are not “good enough” for CUNY,
just because our students are overwhelmingly working-class
and 72% people of color. And we envisioned a powerful union
as a key force in reclaiming the University. For five years
before assuming the leadership of the PSC and now six years
in leadership, we worked systematically within the union to
build its power. The first thing that distinguishes us from our
opponents in this election is that history.
Paid for by The New Caucus, Campaign 2006.
The leadership we offer goes beyond a thin layer at the top. A
few examples: Marcia Newfield, the New Caucus candidate for
vice-president for part-timers, is in the leadership of the international Coalition for Contingent Academic Labor and of Campus
Equity Week. Iris De Lutro, our candidate for vice-president for
professional staff, is a Director of the statewide union, New York
State United Teachers, and an advisor on academic staff issues to
the national union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
The New Caucus is not just about defending CUNY; it is
about expanding the sense of what CUNY can be.
We negotiated, in 2002, the best PSC contract in a decade.
We halted 15 years of declining budgets for CUNY.
■ We introduced the PSC’s first systematic political
endorsement process.
■ We won major legal victories increasing pension
contributions, protecting Travia leave and intellectual
property rights.
■ We forced CUNY management to rebuild the unsafe
Marshak Building at CCNY.
■ We beat back encroachments on academic freedom at
Brooklyn, Hunter and LaGuardia.
■
■
National Influence
www.newcaucus.org
tant initiatives to defend public higher education nationwide:
new federal legislation on increased funding for universities
with high immigrant populations, new coalitions to
New Caucus leadership
defend academic freedom,
negotiated the best
new national legislation to
restore full-time faculty
PSC contract in a
positions and improve the
decade. We halted 15
conditions of part-timers.
The PSC is affiliated with
years of declining
both state and national
budgets for CUNY.
labor unions, and the New
Caucus takes that affiliation seriously; we have reshaped the agendas of the larger
organizations to which we pay dues so they better represent
our members’ needs.
Meanwhile, the New Caucus was taking national leadership on academic labor and access to higher education.
Our ideas have fueled some of the most recent impor-
On the steps of the New York State Capitol in April 2003, Barbara
Bowen, Steve London and NY State legislators deliver 105,453
postcards from the PSC calling for increases in CUNY’s budget. The
message worked; funds for CUNY were restored.
A LETTER FROM BARBARA BOWEN FOR THE NEW CAUCUS
Steve London, our candidate for first vice president, is a Director
of NYSUT and an advisor on national academic salary trends to
the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). My
own positions include a vice-presidency of the national AFT, and
leadership roles in the powerful New York City Municipal Labor
Committee and Central Labor Council.
Our opponents offer nothing like this deep reach and national
leadership.
“Politics” vs. “Bread-and-Butter”
Because the New Caucus has made a culture of organizing so
visible, it is possible to overlook the professionalism that lies
behind every advance we make. We are a union leadership
that does our homework, whether that means research
or cooperative conversation with management. The PSC
could not have succeeded in winning restoration of CUNY’s
budget without laborious preparation of testimony and development of budget numbers. Behind even a modest gain like
TransitCheks were months of delicate negotiation with CUNY
management. Such professionalism should go without saying;
you have a right to expect the highest standards of research,
especially in an academic union.
Our opponents in this election, however, have mischievously
fostered the idea that a union that organizes rallies cannot
also be a union that wins grievances or improves salaries.
Their position may be disingenuous; if not, it reveals a
disturbing poverty of experience and political analysis. I won’t
claim that New Caucus leadership is perfect or that there’s
nothing we could have done better — one of the reasons I am
seeking re-election is that I see the possibility of much more
we can do. But it’s an obvious falsehood that union militancy
is incompatible with bread-and-butter improvements.
The New Caucus has the record to prove it, and the whole of
labor history tells the same story. Unions have been most successful not when they stick their heads in the sand, but when
they exercise political force. This is especially true for publicemployee unions like the PSC. Our “boss” is, in a sense, the
City and State. Not to engage in political issues is not to
engage with our employer.
The real issue is not breadThe “CUNY Alliance”
and-butter unionism vs.
politically engaged unionhas relied on a mix
ism. It’s that the “CUNY
of fantasy about how
Alliance” disagrees with
our political positions in
easy it is to get a
support of student access,
good contract and a
workers’ rights, antiracism
relentless use of “the
and an end to a war that is
killing our students and
big lie.”
draining the state and
national budgets. Rather
than engage in debate about hard political issues, they hide
behind the claim that being active politically makes it impossible to be successful on economic gains.
Opponents Afraid to Debate
I believe that a university faculty and staff deserves more than a
leadership that is afraid to discuss the issues. Every position the
PSC has taken has been discussed and voted on by elected representatives in the union’s Delegate Assembly. But the “CUNY
Alliance” has been absent; they prefer the demagogic method of
setting up a false opposition between politics and economics.
The facts do not bear them out. The truth is that the New
Caucus has been more successful than our predecessors on
bread-and-butter issues. A union that has resisted management pressure to cut retiree health benefits, that has awarded
625 professional development grants to HEOs and CLTs, that
has won protection of members’ rights to Travia leave, that has
created full-paid research time for new faculty and paid office
hours for adjuncts, that has provided additional pay increases
to titles with historically low salaries, that has fought equally
for all members in grievances and arbitrations is not a union
that fails to defend members’ interests.
Arthurine De Sola (center), the New Caucus candidate for
Secretary, leads the PSC committee on professional development grants for HEOs and CLTs. The grant program, negotiated
by the PSC, has awarded 625 grants to CUNY staff.
Magical Thinking
Nowhere have we fought harder for members’ interests than
in this contract. Through three years of organizing, we have
pushed CUNY to recognize that we are serious about improve-
ments, and we have laid the foundation for the massive effort it will
take to break through the concerted
power of City and State. But I know
members are frustrated by the difficulty of winning a decent contract
in this round of bargaining. You are
right to be outraged that CUNY took
more than two years to put one
penny on the table. You are right to
find it intolerable that in a year of
record budget surpluses the City
and State are holding all unions to
settlements that fail to meet their
needs.
Mike Fabricant, New Caucus candidate for Treasurer,
logged over 600 hours in negotiations and preparation for the 2002 contract. The author of five
books on urban communities, Fabricant heads the
CUNY doctoral program in Social Welfare.
Our opponents’ response to such political realities, however, is
to offer you fantasy. On the basis of no history and no record
of achieving any victories for members, they promise that
they could win a better contract simply by having a “professional relationship” with management. For about five minutes, such a view might have an appeal. Who would not like to
hear that all you have to do is sit back and wait for your negotiators to deliver a contract that answers every need? But
that’s magical thinking, and it’s dangerous thinking. It takes
no account of the real political situation in which every public
employee union in New York State operates. A union leadership with that view would offer PSC members up to every concession management demands.
No wonder the “CUNY Alliance” has refused to debate the New
Caucus on all but a handful of campuses. In contrast, the New
Caucus has accepted every invitation to debate. We are willing
to subject our record to public scrutiny; we believe willingness to debate is a sign of respect for the people we represent.
If the “CUNY Alliance” cannot face you in open sessions now,
how secretive would they be if they had power?
“The Big Lie”
The “CUNY Alliance” campaign has relied on a mix of fantasy
about how easy it is to get a good contract and a relentless use
of “the big lie.” They have pumped out e-mail after e-mail
with accusations about the New Caucus, without regard to
whether the accusations are true. They know that their claims
are false or misleading, but they also know the power of lies.
Most members will not check and see that in fact there were
millions of dollars added to the Welfare Fund in the last contract: $1.5 million recurring annually and a $1.4 million lump
sum. The “CUNY Alliance” counts on your not checking. Most
members will not check and see that the PSC has consistently
had superb legal representation
and in fact has a better record of
winning arbitrations even after the
retirement of the union’s fine,
long-time lawyer. They count on
your willingness to believe that a
militant union cannot be a smart
union. And most members will not
check the federal legislation on
privacy of healthcare information; if
you did, you would find that the
“CUNY Alliance,” in their reckless
publication of private Welfare Fund
information, broke a federal law.
I don’t think you want that kind of
desperate behavior in union leadership. The New Caucus
believes you deserve better.
The New Caucus
I have had the honor of representing you for six years: listening, visiting campuses, supporting members individually and
collectively. In that time I have learned both that the union
has a greater capacity than I first imagined, and that the
obstacles we face are greater than they were in 2000. But like
the other members of the New Caucus, with whom I am
proud to be seeking office, I emerge after six years with an
even stronger belief that in CUNY we have something worth
fighting for. A public university with the freedom to teach and
the freedom to learn is not a fantasy. A plan to build on the
organizing of the past six years to challenge State and City
economic constraints is not a lie.
As someone who has spent a long time in political work, I
understand what a privilege it is to be accountable to other
people. I wish you knew the other New Caucus candidates as
well as I do; you would share my sense of how lucky PSC
members are that people of such quality and commitment
are willing to give their time to a collective purpose. As a
candidate for union office, and on behalf of the whole New
Caucus, I offer you our complete accountability, our labor and
our hope. We ask for your strong support in this important
election.
Vote to re-elect New Caucus leadership.
In solidarity,
Barbara Bowen