Four-Year Unionizing Battle
Justice Prevails at CUNY

By NEAL TEPEL

Workers at the City University of New York Research Foundation finally won their battle to become unionized. The victory came after a long struggle with the CUNY Research Foundation, which used every opportunity to delay the unionization of their work force. Although the Graduate Center employees requested an election in 2003, CUNY Foundation administrators filed repeated legal and procedural challenges in an effort to forestall the unionizing of workers. When an election was finally held in May 2005, the Research Foundation again objected and the ballots were impounded pending an investigation of the management objections.

Neal Tepel is president of the New York Civil Service Labor Council and can be reached at neal@tepel.org .

Ballots in a National Labor Relations Board election were finally counted on Thursday, October 4th. Research Foundation employees voted overwhelmingly, by a count of 73 to 16, to join the Professional Staff Congress. Although the workers applied for an election in 2003, the CUNY Research group resisted and continually filed legal objections. An NLRB ruling this past June ordered a ballot count to go forward.

It's disgraceful that the Research Foundation and CUNY leadership attempted to prevent workers at this great institution from becoming union members. If it takes a four-year struggle in liberal New York City for college staff to join a labor organization I shudder to think about the treatment of workers in a Right to Work state. This conflict between the university and its employees was a classic example of anti-unionism experienced throughout the nation. Whether it's WalMart or CUNY, workers need to be organized to prevent abuse from management. Shame on CUNY President Matthew Goldstein and the rest of the Research Foundation board. They wasted thousands of dollars in legal fees and man hours to prevent dedicated college employees from joining a labor organization.

Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen was certainly on target in her statement appearing in THE CHIEF on Oct. 19. "It's outrageous that CUNY's Research Foundation spent years denying union representation to these employees. They did everything they could, even preventing getting the ballots opened, which goes against every academic tradition. The victory caps a long struggle with Research Foundation management, which filed repeated legal and procedural challenges, first to the workers' efforts to hold an election and then to have the votes counted".

The difficulty experienced by PSC in organizing professional staff at the CUNY Research Foundation is a textbook example of the struggle unions are facing every day. With the NLRB election process governing private sector labor relations becoming increasingly anti-union, the entire organizing process is more difficult. Clearly labor law reform is needed. The Employee Free Choice Act defeated in the Senate would have ensured a more timely organizing procedure. This legislation needs to be reintroduced in 2008 and supported by labor.

CUNY's resistance to the unionization of Foundation Research personnel was illogical since the PSC had previously organized a unit of research staff at this college. It's totally unacceptable for a public university to inhibit employees from joining a labor organization and illegal for public funds to be used in preventing workers from participating in union activities. CUNY needs to be put on notice that the labor movement will not accept anti-union activities from this university.