Items

• GSU Denied Room for Meeting

  This document, filed in 1986, included both the original memo from the Graduate Center's Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, Geoffrey Marshall, and the Graduate Student Union’s (GSU) response. In the initial memo, the permission to use a room was withdrawn for the following reason: “The activity for which the GSU wishes to use the room...is not appropriate to the authorized use of Graduate Center facilities by the Graduate Student Union.” The GSU’s response claimed that the action “has shown a cynical contempt for the rights of students and the right of free speech” and announced the group's intention to meet despite the withdrawal of permission.
• Health Care Benefit Description and Application

  This January 21, 1986 document, sent to adjunct PSC  members, is the first official correspondence from CUNY's Office of the Vice Chancellor for Faculty and Staff Relations which described the details of the fully paid, adjunct health care benefits to be administered by the PSC-CUNY Welfare Fund. This health care coverage was made available to adjunct faculty who taught six or more hours per semester for at least ten consecutive semesters. Enclosed in the letter was an application form to be returned by eligible adjunct faculty.
• Introduction to, and invitation to join, the PTU View

  Dissatisfied with their lack of "representation" by the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the Graduate Students' Union and Doctoral Students' Council founded the CUNY Part-Time Instructional and Research Staff Union in 1986. This letter outlined the group's grievances with the PSC and invited graduate stduent membership. The grievances enumerated included: pro-rated pay, equal pay for equal work, basic professional benefits, full rights to participate in the union, job security, and full faculty privileges.
• PTU Newsletter (vol. 1., no. 1)

  The debut newsletter in 1986 of PTU View, was published by a group devoted to fighting for the rights of part-time staff at CUNY. Included were listed contacts at various CUNY campuses; announcements of several Spring meetings; and a detailed enumeration of the group's various positions on adjunct pay and benefits, as well as larger on various political and budgetary issues. The Part-Time Instructional and Research Staff Union (PTU) was a group of part-time faculty members from across CUNY who challenged the PSC for the right to represent adjuncts.
• Part-time Personnel: A Newsletter (3)

  This 1985 Professional Staff Congress (PSC) Part-time Personnel newsletter described the benefits achieved in the PSC-CUNY 1984-1987 contract. Most notably adjuncts who taught six or more hours per semester and at least one course in the same department for at least ten consecutive semesters were eligible to receive health benefits. Additional issues enumerated and described included: tuition remission, workload, salary increases, pay dates, observations, evaluations, and reappointments.
• Part-time Personnel: A Newsletter (2)

  This October 22, 1984 Professional Staff Congress (PSC) Part-time Personnel newsletter reviewed the 1982-84 contractual agreements between the PSC and CUNY. Workloads were described as "the most significant change" and allowed adjunct faculty to teach two courses (not to exceed 9 hours) on one campus and one additional course (not to exceed 6 hours) at a different campus. Additional contract gains included pay dates, observations, reappointments, travel funds, and leaves.
• Association of Part-time Faculty Quiz

  Produced by the Association of Part-time Faculty (APTF) at CUNY, this satirical quiz juxtaposed current CUNY adjunct rights with the recent labor achievements of other institutions of higher education. It also provided a mock balance sheet in which part-time and full-time benefits were compared.
• Deconstructing Chancellor Murphy's Comments on Adjuncts

  The Association of Part-Time faculty (APTF) sent out this correspondence to full -and part-time faculty asking them to send letters to CUNY Chancellor Joseph Murphy who had called the adjunct employment situation “catastrophic” but, according to the APTF, failed to return phone calls and had yet to take any action. The letter stressed that the use of “adjuncts as migrant workers,” exploits adjuncts, full-time faculty, and, students alike and urged the University Faculty Senate to get involved.
• The Refuse: On Representation or Decertification

  This issue of The Refuse (December 1983-January  1984), a Doctoral Students’ Council newletter, addressed the issue of retrenchment at CUNY, pointing to several articles that had mischaracterized CUNY’s relationship to labor precarity and injustices. In the article “Merry Christmas Mr. Polishook [PSC's president],” Zaccardo and Bunnell unpack the distinction between Graduate Assistant A-lines and adjunct positions, which they claimed in effect amounted to a loss of 3,800 dollars annually per graduate student. Also discussed was the national trend of replacing full-time lines with adjuncts and how that resulted in the further de-professionalizing of the teaching field. The newsletter closed with a call to all graduate students to join the Graduate Student Union (GSU) and provided an agenda for the next meeting, which included discussing a decertification campaign.
• Part-time Personnel: A Newsletter (1)

  This 1983 Professional Staff Congress (PSC) Part-time Personnel newsletter communicated the 1982-84 contractual agreement between the PSC and CUNY. It advised all adjuncts to understand the contractual language, as that knowledge would allow them to exercise access to the grievance process should they experience any violations. In addition to pay increases, a number of gains were outlined including pay dates, observations, reappointments, travel funds, and leaves.
• RE: Unemployment Compensation

  This June 17, 1983, memo, sent to all adjunct members of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), informed part-time faculty that they had a right to appeal all state unemployment compensation denials since 1978 based on a procedural violation. Despite being unable to offer assurance, the union urged adjuncts to return the verification forms and if they believed they had not received “reasonable assurance” for the fall semester to apply for unemployment benefits.
• Form Letter for those Expressing Interest in Medical Plan

  Distributed in late May 1983, this letter was sent to those who had previously expressed an interest in the Professional Staff Congress's (PSC) "Wraparound Major Medical Plan." It included quarterly employee payment costs under the plan.
• Form Letter Reviewing Provisions of 1983 Contract Agreement

  Written by Susan Prager, the PSC's Vice President for Part-Time Personnel, this April 1983 letter was distributed to adjunct professors. The letter, intended to inform adjuncts of the terms of the new CUNY agreement which extended retroactively from September 1982 through August 1984, briefly touched on a range of topics including workload, salary, evaluations, and reappointment. Prager closed by encouraging those not yet in the union to join, and for all to report any violations of the rights enumerated in the letter.
• Association of Part-time Faculty: A letter to the PSC

  In addition to a reference to an earlier meeting, this March 15, 1983 letter from Nancy Erber of the Association of Part-Time Faculty and addressed to Mr. Arnold Cantor (PSC Executive Director) and Ms. Susan Prager (PSC Vice President), assured the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) that there were many people across CUNY committed to fighting for adjunct rights. Of particular interest, the letter closed with several agenda ideas for Ms. Prager, which included an “adjunct news” column in The Clarion, the union newspaper, a committee newsletter to adjuncts, a PSC mini-conference on part-time issues, and an opinion survey.
• The Graduate Students' Union 1983-84: A position paper

  Written by the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) in 1983-84, this position paper stated the intentions of the recently formed organization. The aims enumerated were to advance the interests of CUNY graduate students as employees (or prospective employees), to work in concert with the Graduate Center's Doctoral Student Council (DSC), and to press for the improvement of the conditions of adjuncts. The position paper also claimed that part-time employees needed their own representation outside of the PSC and, for the first time, the intent to start a decertification campaign was written about and circulated.
• Doctoral Students Council News: Murphy's Optimism

  This Doctoral Students’ Council (DSC) newsletter, published in 1982, covered adjunct news that ranged from notes on a meeting the DSC steering committee had with Chancellor Murphy to a satirical piece entitled “How not to be an Adjunct”. The article "Adjuncts Organize" argued that only an independent adjunct faculty union could improve working conditions for adjuncts.The Doctoral Students’ Council, a student organization at the CUNY Graduate Center that actively addressed Adjunct issues, would later launch the Adjunct Project.
• Letter: Economic Disparity

  In this letter addressed to President Irwin Polishook of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), Jonathan Lang, Chair of the Doctoral Students’ Council (DSC), outlined the differences in salaries between adjunct and full-time faculty and expressed disappointment in the union’s unwillingness to confront this exploitation and inequity. The letter also stressed that the Reagan administration’s drastic cuts to graduate student financial aid made it imperative to address these inequities. The Doctoral Students’ Council, a student organization at the CUNY Graduate Center that actively addressed Adjunct issues, would later launch the Adjunct Project.
• Proposal for Wrap-A-Round Adjunct Health Insurance

  Written in 1982, this memo discussed the possibility of implementing a "wraparound" medical health insurance plan for adjunct faculty. It argued that this option would be superior because it offered free choice of physician and 365 days of hospital coverage. In addition, there was a handwritten note at the top of the memo that asked if it would be advisable to canvass participants to see "if they would go for the change".
• Reject Unlimited License to Staff their Faculties with Part-time faculty

  This confirmation copy of a June 24, 1982 Western Union Mailgram from Dr. Irwin Polishook to Chancellor Willard A. Genrich urged the NYS Board of Regents to reject an amendment that would allow NYS universities and colleges unlimited license to staff their faculties with part-time faculty. Polishook pointed out both the possibility of abuse of part-time faculty and the inevitable compromise in the quality of education. I
• NY Faculty Protest Move to Increase Use of Part-Timers

  Published on June 4, 1982 in he Higher Education Daily, this article, entitled "NY Faculty Protest Move to Increase Use of Part-Timers," reported that NYS faculty unions attacked NYS Education Commissioner Gordon Ambach’s proposal to let part-timers fill more than half the faculty slots at both public and private universities. State education officials claimed that the intention was to give colleges more flexibility, while faculty unions were concerned that the proposal was “educationally unsound.”
• Higher Education Faculty Leaders Denounce Plan to Replace Career Professors with Part-timers.

  This joint May 28, 1982 statement, signed by Nuala Drescher, Lou Stollap, and Irwin Polishook, three NYS faculty union presidents, expressed shock and denounced a proposal put forward by NYS Education Commissioner Gordon Amach, which would have allowed universities, colleges, and departments to hire more than 50 percent part-time faculty. Calling the proposal embarrassing, it claimed that it was "educationally unsound to suggest that the largest part of a faculty should be composed of members whose primary occupation may be off-campus."
• Letter from the Adjuncts Benevolent Association to Mr. Polishook

  This November 19, 1980 letter , addressed to Irwin Polishook of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) and sent on behalf of the Adjunct Benevolent Association, enumerated why the 9-hour teaching limitation that CUNY had institutionalized was problematic for adjunct faculty. It acknowledged that despite the intention to curtail exploitation, the unintended consequences were numerous and affected CUNY adjuncts negatively.
• Slave Labor in CUNY: The Plight of the Adjunct

  "Slave Labor in CUNY: The Plight of the Adjunct," published in the City College of New York's (CCNY) Student Senate Publication in November 1979, attempted to dispel any misconceptions about adjunct faculty’s working conditions by highlighting the low pay and their precarious status. It called for adjunct faculty to "band together and refuse to be slaves."
• Adjuncts as Seasonal Workers

  This July 31, 1978 memo from Beryl Weinberg of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) to Tony Ficcio discussed adjunct unemployment insurance. It explained the difficulties adjuncts had receiving unemployment insurance, a significant issue considering their lack of job security. Weinberg noted that no adjunct had "reasonable assurance" of re-employment considering that many had been told on the first day of class  that there would be no course available to them. The memo also stated that adjuncts should be treated as if they were "seasonal workers" and if necessary the case should go to court.
• Letter from Polishook to Ledley

  This July 25, 1978 lfrom Professional Staff Congress (PSC) President Irwin Polishook to Professor Ralph Ledley, chairman of the Faculty Welfare Trustees, requested that the Trustees estimate the costs of health coverage for "approximately 2000" uncovered adjunct personnel.