For CSEW members' information.
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:22:31 +0000
From: PSC2334b@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: s_an@xxxxxxx
Subject: Planned Strike Authorization Vote
Action Network Email
October 15, 2015
Dear PSC Members,
At the union’s Delegate Assembly this evening, I announced on behalf of the
Executive Council that the PSC plans to hold a strike authorization vote. A
strike authorization vote—even though it is not a vote to strike—is a
significant escalation of our campaign, and we want to ensure that you have
ample time to prepare for it. There will be several months of preparation
before the vote is taken. The union’s mass meeting on November 19 will offer an
opportunity to discuss and plan for the vote. If you want to be part of
preparing for the vote, let us know here.
A strike authorization vote is not a vote to strike. It is a vote to authorize
the union’s Executive Council to call a strike if necessary. I want to be
clear: the PSC leadership is not calling for a strike. We are doing everything
we can to reach a fair contract settlement without the need to strike. But
given CUNY management’s continued failure to secure State funding and put an
economic offer on the table, we cannot rule out being prepared for a strike.
It is perfectly legal to take a strike authorization vote. While New York
State’s Taylor Law imposes severe financial and legal penalties on unions and
individuals who participate in strikes or other job actions, it does not
prohibit employees from engaging in a strike authorization vote or even from
urging others to vote yes. As we prepare to take this serious step, however, it
is critical that we use our power collectively. At this point, the union
leadership has explicitly not authorized a strike or other job action, and no
members should attempt such actions on their own. To maximize our
effectiveness, we must act with discipline and avoid diluting our power by
taking individual actions that could lead to penalties.
A strike authorization vote will give the union the power to use labor’s
strongest weapon if, after everything else is tried, we cannot achieve a fair
solution any other way. Our goal is to achieve a contract worthy of our work
and supportive of our students’ education; it isn’t our goal to strike.
Throughout the coming weeks and months, the PSC leadership will continue to
work aggressively on every front to achieve a good contract.But six years
without a raise, six years of erosion of competitiveness and conditions at
CUNY, is intolerable—especially in one of the richest cities in the world. If
Chancellor Milliken will not defend CUNY, we will.
The union has used every legal means at its disposal to achieve a fair
contract—we have held scores of negotiating sessions, we have met privately
with CUNY management, we have advocated in Albany and City Hall, we have
testified at public hearings, we have run more than 600 radio ads, and we have
engaged in protest actions in the boardroom, on the campuses and in the
streets. Chancellor Milliken has still not delivered.
The other PSC officers and I will continue direct advocacy with the Governor’s
and Mayor’s Offices, and will strengthen our growing support among labor and
community allies. We will also intensify our media campaign and build on the
momentum of the October 1 rally at the chancellor’s apartment. I hope that
these steps, together with a disruptive action planned for November 4, will
force CUNY to put a fair offer on the table and reach a settlement.
If not, however, we are prepared to escalate further. There is too much at
stake to allow another academic year to go by without a fair contract and
another generation of CUNY students to be shortchanged by underinvestment in
their faculty and staff. Failure to invest in our contract represents a
political decision not to invest in the people we teach—as well as not to
invest in us.
A strike authorization vote is not a step the union leadership takes lightly,
even though it is many steps away from actually calling a strike. The PSC has
taken a strike authorization vote before, in 1973, to win the union’s first
contract. If there is any way we can reach an acceptable agreement now through
political pressure and negotiations, we will. The PSC has negotiated solutions
with CUNY to extremely challenging issues in the past—such as the landmark
settlement on adjunct health insurance—and we will continue to negotiate as
productively as possible. But negotiations cannot succeed without a single
dollar on the table.
In Seattle, Chicago and a growing number of American cities, teachers have felt
forced to strike to defend public education against attempts to degrade their
jobs and strip resources from poor communities and communities of color. The
crisis at CUNY may be less visible because it has unfolded slowly, but it is no
less real. We are up against a planned, systematic effort to devalue our labor
as academic workers and to deny our students a high-quality education. By
announcing the plan to hold a strike authorization vote, we link our fight to
the fights of teachers across the country who have stood up for their own
dignity on the job and against racial and economic injustice.
You will hear more in the coming weeks about the planned strike authorization
vote, and about an action scheduled for November 4 that will express what is at
stake in our contract. The mass meeting on November 19 will also offer a forum
for discussion about the strike authorization vote plan.
I ask for your support as the union escalates one step further, carefully and
strategically building the power we need to win a fair contract and force a
change in the political decision not to invest in CUNY.
In solidarity,
Barbara Bowen
President, PSC
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