Also Pushes for Parental Leave:
PSC Aims High in Pay Talks

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen last week announced that the union would agree to a contract only if it provides raises "measurably" above the rate of inflation, in contrast to the patterns set by most city and state unions.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow CHANGE THE PARADIGM: Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen announced that the union will seek to break the city and state wage patterns and achieve salary increases for City University of New York employees 'measurably' above the rate of inflation. 'CUNY boasts of the university's success while tolerating, if not creating, the conditions for failure,' she said.

The decision was met with enthusiastic applause from the approximately 1,000 members who attended a mass meeting at Cooper Union Oct. 30. Ms. Bowen further outlined a multi-contract bargaining strategy aimed at addressing what the union believes are three structural problems that have developed at the City University of New York over more than three decades: salary erosion, over-reliance on part-time instructors, and ballooning teaching loads.

Quality-of-Life Issues

In the current phase of the campaign, union officials are pressing for paid union-wide parental leave and job security and health insurance for part-timers, in addition to the salary hikes.

"We are talking about a profound transformation of the conditions under which we teach," said Ms. Bowen.

The chants of "What do we want - contract!" at times seemed incongruous with a scholarly speech and a Power Point presentation offered by the union's leadership, but the members were animated by both aspects of the meeting. It was chock full of information and statistics and infused with educators' personal stories about the difficulties they faced balancing their own academic standards with a desire for an improved quality of life. Their contract expired Sept. 19.

"No one I know came to CUNY for the money," said Penny Lewis, who teaches sociology at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Limits Their Horizons

But she argued that the lack of it was driving people away, citing the departure of one-third of the new hires from BMCC in the past three years. "Because we don't have the money ... we don't attend conferences, we curtail or give up ambitious research, we take on other work for money," she said. "We're forced to make choices that breed cynicism - students vs. research, research vs. money, money vs. students, family vs. everything else."

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow THE MATCH GAME: Professor Frank Kirkland contended that in his department at Hunter College, newly tenured Professors could get a salary upgrade only if they received an offer from another institution. He told a meeting of 1,000 Professional Staff Congress members last week that any new contract had to include significant salary increases if the City University of New York wanted to retain faculty. 'You're asking people who want to stay to look elsewhere,' he said.

The union's leadership has made a decision that following the wage pattern set by other unions - about 3 to 4 percent a year - will not address the steep decline in salaries that began with the fiscal crisis in the 1970s.

Breaking established patterns is a rare occurrence in city and state bargaining. Principals' and Teachers' unions have succeeded in winning significant pay hikes recently, but in exchange they agreed to structural changes in hiring practices, increased work hours and merit-bonus programs.

Pay Shrinking in Value

Current salaries at CUNY have dropped by 25 to 50 percent in real dollars, compared to their levels in 1971, according to the PSC. Top pay for an Assistant Professor is currently $71,732 but would be $107,838 if the salaries had kept pace with inflation. The bottom step for the title would have been $76,776, but currently sits at $38,801, about $7,000 less than the starting pay for a city public school Teacher.

PSC Vice President Steve London noted that CUNY salaries were far below those in area public universities. Average pay for Professors is about $123,800 and $122,200 at Rutgers University and the University of Connecticut, respectively. The top step for CUNY Professors is currently $102,235. (A handful of well-known CUNY scholars make significantly more, through a special salary program.)

Mr. London added that CUNY's merit-based pay proposal was "unacceptable." It would allow university Presidents to grant wage increases to individual Professors at their discretion.

'Forced to Look Outside'

Frank Kirkland, the chair of the philosophy department at Hunter College, explained his college's difficulty in keeping faculty. Starting salaries have been raised, but newly tenured faculty face a quandary when they are looking for an increase. They can only get an upgrade to match an offer from another institution. "They are forced to look elsewhere when they are trying to keep up," he said.

Union members and officials also emphasized the need for a paid parental leave policy. Currently, educators can only take off unpaid time, in keeping with Federal law.

Keena Lipsitz, who teaches at Queens College, spoke about her seven-month-old daughter, who was cared for as an infant during the day mostly by her husband, because his university granted him paid leave. She noted a colleague who attended a meeting 11 days after she gave birth because she was concerned about retribution.

Can't Jump Tenure Track

Alex Vitale, who teaches at Brooklyn College, said his wife gave birth two weeks ago but that he's still working full-time, because he couldn't afford to take unpaid leave. "If you're up for tenure or a promotion," he added, "checking out in the middle of the semester - that's not going to go too well."

Part-time instructors, who are paid hourly and teach about half of all CUNY courses, also spoke up about their low pay and scant job security. "Each semester I'm not sure if I will have a job," said adjunct lecturer Marcia Newfield, who has been teaching at CUNY for 20 years. "CUNY would not have survived without us."

PSC President Bowen said that the last two contracts should be considered Phase I of the union's drive to transform CUNY. She pointed out the gains made in sabbatical pay, welfare fund contributions and reversals of past concessions. But she added that she "wanted to be frank" that those contracts had not addressed the structural problems of eroded salaries, high teaching loads and the large numbers of adjuncts.

A Harder Struggle

The PSC had a choice, she argued, of continuing with the incremental improvements that would never allow the educators to catch up. Or, the union leader proposed, the PSC could launch a larger struggle for significant improvement, which would take longer and require action on the part of the membership and making alliances with students and community groups.

Urged on by her members, who rose to their feet, Ms. Bowen said that the union leadership had chosen the latter.

"The PSC leadership has decided to fight," she said.