Adjuncting / jessie goldstein and Renee mcgarry
Grad Students, Job Security, and Health Care
Entering this new school year, it may seem like we got everything we asked for last year. After writing letters, calling the Chancellor, the President, legislators, and a large rally, the latest communications from the PSC and CUNY indicate that soon health insurance for doctoral student CUNY employees will be in our hands. Of course, the question remains: how soon? And, can we truly see this as success?
To start, it’s best to go straight to the tentative contract settlement announced by the PSC. The proposed settlement, announced in late June and passed on to the union membership by an emergency meeting of the Delegate Assembly on July 1, does nothing to lift CUNY employees out from the basement of our nation’s lowest academic salary scales. For example, the 3% increase proposed for the first year of the contract raises the pay of an adjunct on the lowest step (perhaps you, a graduate student with little to no teaching experience and without a master’s degree) by $75 per course. Hardly impressive, and hardly what we deserve.
We didn’t win significant increases in pay for contingent workers in the system, and other demands were not met as well. The contract doesn’t even broach the subject of job security for part-time workers. For graduate students, this question is often tossed to the side, as we see ourselves as just passing through on our way to bigger and better things. But are we? Are the five, six, seven, or ten years of our lives that we spend teaching in the CUNY system really just temporary? Or are we attempting to reinforce the hierarchy that already exists? Without job security, graduate students are just as likely to lose adjuncting positions as anyone else. When that happens, without cause or justification, after compliments from students, and stellar observation reports, graduate students feel just as dejected, vulnerable, and robbed as other adjuncts. For many of us, adjuncting is what pays the bills and the tuition. We cannot, and should not, view these positions as temporary.
Along these lines, members of the Adjunct Project have spent the summer forming a coalition with other contingent workers in the CUNY system. Working alongside adjuncts from a variety of campuses, we have created a vision of the contract we’d like to see in the future. Of course, pay equity is among the top demands, as is job security. Additionally, we are united in consistently questioning the adjunctification of the university, and are committed to tearing down the two-tier labor system that exists within CUNY.
What of doctoral student health insurance, then? Certainly, we can see progress. CUNY and the PSC have promised that doctoral student employees will be added to the state health insurance plan in the near future. Details have yet to be released, though, and there has been no mention of a timeline for this process. It seems unlikely that it will be instituted for the fall semester, which leaves many students with questions. Should they renew their current coverage? Or is there a chance this will come through? Unfortunately, neither organization has released any answers to alleviate the anxiety of our student body. While all of us are looking forward to low-cost, quality health coverage, we need our questions answered and we need to continue advocating for students who remain uncovered by this proposal, namely master’s students and non-adjunct student employees. During the week of September 8, the Adjunct Project will sponsor a series of events to answer whatever questions we can, and pressure CUNY to expedite our coverage and extend it to more students.
It’s been a busy summer — and the work will continue during the school year. In addition to these very important contract issues, a group of students has begun working on a CUNY Disorientation Guide, which seeks to demystify the system and make its inner workings more transparent. Rumblings of radicalism are making their way across all campuses as fledgling groups, such as the CUNY Student Movement and the CUNY Social Forum, seek to unite students, faculty, and alumni and work to create space for dialogue about what CUNY was, is, and what we want it to be.
As the academic year begins, we are looking forward to hearing from you, hearing your needs, and what you’d like to see the Adjunct Project accomplish in the coming months. Our meetings will be held on the second Friday of each month at 4pm in room 5414.
Join us, and let your own voice be heard!
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