Unity Rally Hits Racist CUNY Bosses’ 2-Tier System

NEW YORK CITY, September 26 — “Part-time, Full-time Faculty Unite, Same Struggle, Same Fight!” More than 500 City University of New York (CUNY) professors and students picketed outside the Board of Trustees meeting to protest the Board’s racist vote to take away health care for adjuncts (part-time professors) by next year.

CUNY is a working-class university system. Its make-up is mostly Latino, black, and immigrant workers and students. This cutback would affect over 10,200 people across the CUNY system.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union representing CUNY faculty and staff, called the protest. A delegation of 70 or so workers and students also went inside to present a petition signed by thousands calling on CUNY to provide adequate funding for adjunct professor health insurance.

This large and spirited rally was an inspiring demonstration of unity between full-time and part-time professors, and a growing realization that the two-tier system of labor at CUNY is a threat to all workers. Adjunct health insurance was won in 1986, and like all reforms, it is now being taken back.

The reliance on 11,450 adjunct workers, who now teach more than half the classes, has increased dramatically in recent years. These workers are the lowest-paid with the least job security. They receive an inferior health insurance plan compared to full-time workers. The two-tier system was set up to fail, as only 13% of adjuncts receive health insurance to begin with. The proposed cut will make healthcare even more unattainable.

CUNY has refused to boost its contribution to the PSC Welfare Fund, which pays for adjunct health insurance. Though the cost of insurance has increased 400% of its cost in 2002, very few workers are receiving healthcare.

PLP professors and students came to the rally with friends from campuses all over the city. Students distributed 50 CHALLENGEs and 300 fliers entitled “Fight for Adjunct Health Insurance, Eliminate the Disease of Capitalism.”  A professor read the headline and said, “Yes, capitalism really is a disease that needs to be eliminated.”

Many friends at CUNY are realizing the futility of reforms and agree that capitalism will not provide the basis for real education. “The public university system is broken,” said one professor from Hostos Community College, “and we can no longer believe in the false promises of the CUNY trustees or the system as a whole.”

More CUNY workers and students are witnessing the contagion of capitalist crisis and crippling austerity regimes imposed on workers worldwide, causing tremendous misery. Such discussions must be at the forefront in our classrooms in conjunction with the building of worker/student solidarity inside the university and the surrounding communities.

CUNY Chancellor Goldstein announced at the trustee meeting that he would bring up funding from NY State to save adjunct healthcare. PSC leadership saw this as a victory. But all unions serve to make compromises with these bosses, and continue to provide cheap labor. PLP must continue organizing at CUNY to fight for more than measly scraps the bosses toss at workers.

Clearly, this does not signal a victory but a chance to discuss how capitalism thrives off  inadequate health care, the exploitation of part-time professors, and job insecurity — what Marx called the reserve army of labor that is integral to capitalism. As our flyer said: “The longer capitalism survives, the more people will suffer from joblessness, homelessness, hunger, and low wages, and the more countless thousands will die or be maimed in imperialist wars.

As professors and students we should resolve to tell those in our classes and on our campuses the truth: that capitalism needs to be treated like smallpox or malaria, a disease we need to eradicate. Our homework should be to organize for an egalitarian society — communism — that makes capitalism a relic of the past. Progressive Labor Party is working toward that goal. Please join us.”J