CUNY and Faculty Union Reach Tentative Contract
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City University of New York has reached a tentative contract agreement with leaders of its faculty union, signalling an end to a contentious dispute that dragged on for more than 3 1/2 years.
The president of the 20,000-member Professional Staff Congress, Barbara Bowen, announced the deal in an e-mail message to her membership yesterday morning, a day after she learned that she had staved off an aggressive electoral challenge for control of the union.
The tentative contract, which CUNY officials confirmed yesterday, provides for an average pay raise of 8.48% spread out over four years, plus an $800 payment for full-time employees at the end of the contract in 2007. The university also will make an initial $30 million contribution to the union’s depleted welfare fund, in addition to $2.2 million in annual payments.
In an e-mail to members yesterday, Ms. Bowen called the agreement “imaginative” and said it was “the best settlement possible within a hostile political environment that we have not yet succeeded in changing.” She did not respond yesterday to requests for comment.
In a statement, the CUNY chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, said the agreement was “responsive to our faculty and staff while providing efficiencies and savings” for the university.
Ms. Bowen finished the deal as she and other union leaders campaigned against rival candidates who said her “radical” bargaining tactics had put the union in a poor negotiating position. They also blamed the union leadership for letting the welfare fund dwindle to less than $2 million from about $15 million in recent years.
In preliminary election results tallied Tuesday, Ms. Bowen’s New Caucus slate of candidates defeated the rival CUNY Alliance with 54% of the nearly 6,700 votes cast among faculty and staff members at the university’s 17 campuses. The results will be certified on May 8.
The CUNY Alliance candidate for president, Rina Yarmish, expressed disappointment in the loss but said she was heartened by the strong showing of the Alliance, which formed only a few months ago. “We hope that our message got across to our opponents and that they will recognize that their strategy is a failure,” she said.
