On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 3:41 PM Sándor John <s_an@xxxxxxx> wrote:
See below.
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*From:* Sándor John <s_an@xxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Tuesday, July 7, 2020 3:40 PM
*To:* CCU-Freelist <cunycontingents@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* Emergency: 3,000 Layoffs at CUNY - The Union Must Prepare &
Organize an All-Out Strike
- *PLEASE SHARE WIDELY* -
New issue of the CUNY Contingents Unite newsletter. See attached PDF.
(The newsletter will also be posted at cunycontingents.wordpress.com
soon.)
*Emergency: 3,000 Layoffs at CUNY*
*THE UNION MUST PREPARE AND ORGANIZE AN ALL-OUT STRIKE FOR THE START OF
SCHOOL*
*No cuts, no layoffs! *
*No tuition hikes!*
The mass layoffs of almost 3,000 adjuncts (so far) at the City University
of New York, the loss of health insurance for hundreds, the cuts in hours
and the threat of even more drastic cuts – all this represents a genuine
emergency for all of us who work and study at CUNY. This head-on assault
must be answered, *now*. That means bringing out the power needed to
defend our jobs, our rights and our lives – and public education itself –
against the devastation being wreaked by the CUNY tops and the ruling
class.
Our union, the Professional Staff Congress, is quite
rightly suing management for its gross violation of the terms under which
CUNY received CARES Act funds. Yet we cannot rely on the “justice” system –
and certainly not on the Democratic politicians that run the state and
city.
Nobody will do it for us. CUNY faculty, staff and
students must mobilize, now, in our own defense. We in the PSC must
actively unite with our sisters and brothers in DC37 (among them College
Assistants, cafeteria workers and others hit with layoffs) and other
unions. And as CUNY Contingents Unite (CCU) has emphasized, to be effective
– particularly when up against New York State’s anti-strike Taylor Law –
faculty, staff and students must do this together with workers and the
oppressed throughout New York.
This basic point is clearer than ever today, amidst mass
upheaval against police brutality and racist oppression. And now ICE says
international students will be thrown out if their classes are all online!
As part of the struggle, we must raise hell, far and wide, against what
CUNY’s brutal slashing of its teaching force will do to its students,
almost 77% of whom are African American, Asian and Latino. This is an
assault on the hard-earned rights, sacrifices and hopes of the whole
multiracial working class that makes this city run – and can bring it to a
halt.
Mobilizing together to stop this attack, we must link
this to the fight not just against tuition hikes but to end tuition, as
well as evictions (including from university housing) and the presence of
cops of all kinds on campus; and for widescale recruitment and advancement
of black, Latino, Asian and immigrant grad students, faculty and staff at
CUNY.
*What needs to be done in the face of the mass layoffs
emergency?* Neither toothless “moral suasion” nor flash-in-the-pan
gimmicks will do it. The union as a whole and all of us, its members, must*
prepare and organize an all-out strike to STOP and REVERSE the layoffs and
cuts.* We must do this together with large numbers of students at this,
the largest urban public university in the U.S. *And **this strike should
be launched at the start of school this Fall*.
Management began pre-emptive layoffs as the school year
wound down, calculating that we would be unable to react. But we must *use
the summer to escalate organized, well-planned disruptive actions that use
collective power and call major attention to the emergency at CUNY,
building for a strike at the beginning of the school year. *
Mass layoffs began with 450 adjuncts axed at John Jay –
and have now hit a fifth of CUNY’s adjunct workforce. Even before Gov.
Cuomo announces cuts of his own aimed at CUNY, against which he has long
displayed an especially venomous antagonism, the CUNY tops have carried out
this assault. While pleading poverty, the university pays its chancellor
$675,000 a year, plus a $7,500 monthly housing stipend; college presidents
rake in hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile, at least five CUNY campuses
ordered students to move out of dorms, with almost no notice, in early
April.
In May, management agreed to give the union “detailed
college budget information.” Weeks later, they have reportedly provided no
such information. We must demand that CUNY, and each of its campuses, *o**pen
the books* to committees of workers, faculty and students, so we can
inspect them to see for ourselves where the money is going.
Facing the emergency of mass layoffs and cuts, the PSC
leadership now says it’s “time to talk seriously about whether the union
needs to consider disruptive job action during the fall semester in order
to save lives, save jobs and save CUNY.” But that’s too late. The threat is
indeed beyond serious, and we indeed need to be serious, not just talking
about job action but preparing and organizing to shut down CUNY with an
all-out strike when school starts this Fall. A *CUNY-wide* *strike
preparation committee, elected by and responsible to the union membership*,
should be set up now.
* For in-depth discussion on what it means to build for a strike, see the
CCU site: cunycontingents.wordpress.com
cunycontingents@xxxxxxxxx
