CUNY, Union May Reach Contract As Salary Demands Are Lowered
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The City University of New York and its faculty union are moving closer to a contract agreement, as leaders of the Professional Staff Congress appear to have lowered their demands for salary increases in the latest round of talks.
The 20,000-member union has been without a contract since 2002, and negotiations are being held as the union votes on whether to retain its leaders or replace them with a rival slate of candidates who have been harshly critical of the policies and tactics of the union president, Barbara Bowen. Balloting for the election, in which a group called the CUNY Alliance is opposing the incumbent New Caucus, began on April 3 and continues until April 24.
While Ms. Bowen has in the past proposed salary and benefits increases totaling as much as 15% over four years, that demand has been lowered to about 8.5%, according to figures stated in an e-mail obtained by The New York Sun that was sent last week by a union vice president, Steven London.
Included in the proposed 8.48% increase would be a retroactive salary increase of 5.8%. The rest would go into the union’s welfare fund, which has plummeted to less than $2 million from $15 million in recent years.
That proposal has brought heavy criticism from opponents of the New Caucus leadership, who say it lends credence to their claims that Ms. Bowen has mismanaged the contract negotiations.
“The contract stinks to high heaven,” the CUNY Alliance candidate for treasurer, Howard Ross, said. “We’re getting a stupendous pay cut, in terms of real dollars.”
Mr. Ross said the contract would be a net loss for union members, as the proposed increases are less than the rate of inflation. In an e-mail to union members last month, Ms. Bowen said members would get more value for their money by devoting some of the increases to the welfare fund, instead of taking them as retroactive salary.
A professor of history at Brooklyn College, Robert David Johnson, said the current union proposal “shows the complete failure of Barbara Bowen’s bargaining stance,” which Mr. Johnson characterized as taking a militant position in negotiations and raising a “radical” political agenda. “It totally backfired,” he said.
A union spokeswoman, Sharon Toomer, said Ms. Bowen was unavailable for comment last night.
