BOWEN KEEPS IDEALS AND JOB

Razzle Dazzle

Bowen Keeps Ideals and Job

By RICHARD STEIER

After five months of high hopes, high anxiety, and frustration mixed with anger, the stars aligned in Barbara Bowen's favor on April 25.

At 4:45 that afternoon, she got a call from a representative of the City University of New York informing her that a contract she had proclaimed virtually a done deal back in November, only to have CUNY later say she had no basis for that belief, finally was ready for its closeup. A few hours later, she learned that she had been re-elected to a third term as president of the Professional Staff Congress.

Since negotiating contracts is the most tangible way that labor leaders serve their members, having the ballots come back before a deal was in place added more excitement to the process than Ms. Bowen might have preferred.

'Members Saw Common Foes'

During an interview two days after her big parlay came in, she spoke of the importance of her work in engaging members in union activity. "Yes, it was very difficult during a union election to have a contract so delayed," she said, alluding to the fact that PSC members have been working under an expired deal since Nov. 1, 2002. "But the fact that it has taken members 3-1/2 years to get here focused them tremendously on the political conditions that impinge on our contract," referring to the roles played by Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki in CUNY contract decisions.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow MAKING TRADE-OFF PALATABLE: Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen says a City University of New York agreement to fund a full year of research work by instructors seeking tenure was what made her willing to extend the tenure period from five years to seven. She explained, 'The PSC is very supportive of higher levels of scholarship. We don't want to do that in a way that makes it impossible for our members to meet it, however.'However much that realization may have rallied her 20,000 members and persuaded them, by a 10-point margin, to keep their faith in her, it clearly didn't hurt when her opponent, Rina Yarmish, damaged her own credibility shortly before ballots went out by claiming the wage terms Ms. Bowen was pursuing were inferior to those won by the PSC's state counterpart, United University Professions.

In fact, the pay raises that were pursued and ultimately won were identical to those negotiated by the UUP. The bad news, from the PSC's standpoint, is that the UUP contract runs for four years; its own tentative deal would last for 58-1/2 months.

The extension comes with an explanation: stretching the deal out that long was the only way Ms. Bowen could match the UUP wage terms and still deal with a pressing problem: the PSC's rapidly shrinking welfare fund reserve.

Typically, the union has looked to maintain a reserve of between $26 and $30 million - enough, Ms. Bowen said, to cover a year's worth of benefits. By the time the deal was reached, the reserve's tank was low enough to require refueling. CUNY's commitment to pay an additional $5.2 million under the pact, and to provide that sum on a recurring basis after it expires, would eventually get the fund back to where it should be.

"It's very important to us, particularly at a time when the fight is to keep management from taking money out of your welfare fund," she remarked.

'Less Money Around This Time'

During her first term as president, she had an easier time negotiating a contract because the citywide pattern negotiated by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani was more generous than the one crafted by Mike Bloomberg. The Giuliani deal, which gave civilian municipal unions raises of 9 percent over 27 months, was decent enough, Ms. Bowen said, that her members accepted her decision to take just 7 percent in wage hikes and devote the other two percent to addressing fringe benefits and working conditions. "This time there was much less money to go around," she said, referring to a package that provides only 9.5 percent in wages and spreads it over a duration that is more than twice as long.

Even so, she noted, "We were able to bargain for things other than salary." Besides bailing out the welfare fund, the PSC won an increase in sabbatical pay so that, if the deal is ratified, members who took a year off would receive 80 percent of salary, compared to the old 50 percent.

"Many people who have been teaching for as much as 35 years have never applied for sabbaticals," Ms. Bowen said, "because they couldn't afford to."

While the contract is free of the kind of givebacks, particularly at the expense of future members, that numerous municipal unions have made this round, the PSC made one significant concession: extending the time before instructors qualify for tenure from five years to seven. But in return, Ms. Bowen demanded and got untenured faculty the right to full pay for a year spent doing research, compared to the old standard under which they were paid for half that time.

Members Split on Issue

Asked whether she might encounter opposition to the extended tenure period during the contract ratification process, Ms. Bowen responded, "It's one area where our members take principled positions that are quite different."

Seven years is the national standard for tenure at four-year colleges, she explained, but "it's not the norm at two-year colleges, and CUNY is a mix of two-year and four-year schools."

Some members, particularly instructors in the sciences, "have wanted the tenure clock to go to seven years for as long as they've been at CUNY," she said, noting that it places them under less pressure to complete the research that will be the key to their gaining tenure. Conversely, Ms. Bowen continued, "There are many members in the community colleges who feel it's merely a concession, because it increases your period of job insecurity."

Virtually from the time she took office, she has been prodding CUNY to grant tenure with greater frequency, arguing that the university system exploited the large number of adjuncts it employs - who make up nearly half the PSC's membership - when it came to both salary and workload precisely because they lacked guaranteed employment.

According to one person familiar with the PSC's financial situation, money Ms. Bowen had devoted to boosting conditions for adjuncts under the previous contract was one reason the welfare fund had become depleted. That had put Ms. Bowen in a position where, if she hadn't extended the contract by as much as she did, she would have had to accept increased member co-pays to generate enough savings to persuade CUNY to boost its welfare fund contribution, this source said.

Shades of Toussaint

Ms. Bowen's own take on the situation reflects the rights movements that she and her colleagues on the union's board came out of, placing them at the left end of the political spectrum among municipal union officials. One colleague likened her to Roger Toussaint when it comes to fiery rhetoric that can antagonize political leaders while also creating unrealistically high expectations among union members, but there are moments when Ms. Bowen will voice opinions in blunter, more race-specific terms than the transit union leader.

"Why should CUNY always be poor?" she asked, alluding to her contention that it is chronically underfunded by both the city and state. One reason, she continues, is that there is "a racist bias against the people we teach."

Not Always in Sync

She says of CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, "I think on some issues we converge: getting additional operating aid and capital aid for CUNY," noting they had jointly lobbied earlier that week in Albany against Governor Pataki's vetoes of the Legislature's additions to the higher-education budget. "But we are far apart in our vision for the university."

Ms. Bowen gained office six years ago by presenting herself as a more active, militant leader than longtime PSC President Irwin Polishook. Living up to those early ideals still matters to her even as the realities of running the PSC in a time when Republicans are setting the agenda at the city, state and Federal levels have shown her that some objectives won't be accomplished by rhetoric and energy alone.

"The goals we came in with are a constant presence, and they exert a welcome and necessary pressure" on her and her board, Ms. Bowen said. CUNY salary levels are off by 40 percent, adjusting for inflation, compared to the 1970s, something Ms. Bowen said is partly attributable to the link between her contract talks and those of city and state unions.

Squeezed by City, State

"When CUNY is recruiting nationally, we shouldn't be held to a local contract pattern," she said, a variation on an argument made by far more politically conservative unions such as the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. "Being caught between the city and the state is a miserable place to be, because they both want their pound of flesh. We did some things that were very creative [in this contract], but we did not break through the economic constraints that were imposed by the city and the state."

She continued, "There was not a fiscal crisis that created those constraints in the city. I would call it a political agenda driven by an ideology, not only in the bargaining pattern but in terms of the individual items and how everything is costed. If we're going to get further, we have to change the political environment, and that means not only who is in office but to create union power."

Even if the frontrunner to succeed Governor Pataki, State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, is more kindly disposed toward labor, Mayor Bloomberg will continue to loom prominently when Ms. Bowen goes to the bargaining table again in the latter part of 2007. Nonetheless, she said she believes the growing activism of her members may allow her to make more than the "incremental changes" she was able to achieve in this contract.

Coalition? Depends.

Asked whether she might go to the table sooner as part of a municipal bargaining coalition that United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has been trying to form, Ms. Bowen replied, "It depends on what the coalition looks like."

She said she does not believe that knowing the realities of running the union have changed her substantially from the fiery idealist who questioned the lack of positive change under her predecessor. "I'm certainly different in terms of understanding the process much more," Ms. Bowen said. "In terms of the goals and vision, in some ways I've become more committed, because I've had to fight for them."

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