CUNY

DIGITALHISTORYARCGHIVE

CUNY Digital History Archive

Interview with Marcia Newfield
Interviewer: Irwin Yellowitz

January 31, 2017

New York, NY

Irwin Yellowitz:

Marcia Newfield:

Irwin:

Marcia:

This is January 31, 2017.1 am Irwin Yellowitz and I will be interviewing
Marcia Newfield as part of the PSC oral history project. Thank you,
Marcia, for joining me, and let’s begin with a question that we ask each of
our interviewees. What was background before coming to CUNY? You
might tell us something about your family, your education, and your
employment before you came to CUNY.

Okay, so I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, but was moved here at
two months old or so. My father was a laborer who had been a cigar
maker before The Depression, and then he’d worked for a company for 13
years or something. Then after The Depression was left out... Both my
parents were immigrants. My mother had been a legal secretary. She had
been based in Springfield, Massachusetts. My father was in New York.
They somehow got together. They were both older people. My mother
was 38. My father was 50.

So, I was the child, sort of the surprise. I don't know, the child of elder
parents who weren’t that acclimated, as it were. I mean they spoke
English at home of course, although they knew some Yiddish, which they
used when they didn’t want me to understand something.

Right, that was common.

But there was no thrust to teach me Yiddish or have me -- My father was
an atheist and my mother went along. Later on, in my life, I started to


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study Judaism after I had gotten immersed in Hinduism and studied with
one of these gurus. But I went to City College ... | went to Brandeis for two
years; then I went to City [College]. My father died. I went to City. We
didn’t have much money at all. We were very -

What years were those, approximately?

‘52, approximately, when | graduated. I went to the Bronx High School of
Science. When | graduated from there, the man that my father worked for,
who was a cousin, a very, very, very wealthy man, he helped pay for my
Brandeis years. But I only lasted at Brandeis for a couple of years and
then my father died. I got sick. ] went to the Jewish Theological Seminary
for a while and then I finished up at City College, and got a cum laude
there and honors society.

Then I got a scholarship to NYU in English for a master’s degree in
English, and that killed me. I mean in the sense that I felt if ] didn’t get out
of there in five minutes, I was going to lose my love of poetry, and so I
stopped. I eventually completed that master’s degree, so I stopped, I went
to the Bank Street College of Education. I felt that children were closer to
poetry than the NYU graduate program, which was entirely true. And so, I
got that degree and then I taught at a nursery school for doctors’ children
.. You know, I did various things in education and then - what happened?
I started to write a lot, poetry and this and that and the other. I went to
the artist colony in Massachusetts called the Cummington Community of
the Arts. I got accepted and I started painting while I was there, and then |
was also writing. But then I wrote some children’s books, which were
published. There were about six books for children that were published.

I came back to New York -I didn’t do that all at that at the colony - but I
came back to New York. I started to paint. I thought what am I doing here
at 10:00 in the morning painting? And I was part of a poetry group as well
and the people there were teaching in New Jersey at Montclair. They got
me to teach there as an Adjunct, teaching Women’s Studies, which was
really good for me. I liked it.

Approximately what year was that?

Pardon me?


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Approximately what year were you at Montclair, just to put some
perspective on it?

Yeah, yeah, it was in the late ‘70s. | mean, I also worked at NYU ona
project, but the bottom line is that like at Montclair they were paying
nothing. It was really nothing and so I said I had better try to get into
CUNY. I need a little more than nothing. So that’s when I started in 88, I
started adjuncting at CUNY and at BMCC [Borough of Manhattan
Community College]. I was also adjuncting at Long Island University, so I
was doing both for many years.

Then in 2003 or so, I became very involved in the union, and then Eric
Marshall, who'd been the first vice president ... Not the first, but he was in
this regime in the New Caucus. He took a job with NYSUT (New York State
United Teachers), so then I became acting vice president, and then I was
elected shortly afterwards. So then for about 13 years I was vice
president for the part timers, and I just resigned in 2014 or so, is it? No,
we're ’15 now. I think it was 2014 but that’s not important.

We're in’17.

We're in’17 now, so I haven’t been vice president for two terms. Well,
from one term Susan got elected. Susan DiRaimo got elected in ’15, I
guess. That was when the last big election was, in ’15. So, I was acting as
vice president and actual vice president from 2003 to ’15, right? That's a
long --

And you've been active.

And I’ve always been active. Then part of my trajectory here at the union
.. After I got to be vice president I remember sitting over somewhere and
I saw that there was a meeting of the leaders and I thought why aren’t I
going in there? I’m a leader. I wasn’t allowed to go there. You know, it was
the secretary, the treasurer, the four leaders.

This was here?

Here, this was in 2003 or ’04, and how come I|’m not in that leadership
meeting? Then I realized that it was there’s leadership and there’s
leadership. You know, I was part of the DA and then, later on, I was part of
the negotiating team but I wasn’t in the inner, inner. So, I said, “Okay, I’m
just going to join every committee on the planet here, on the PSC planet.


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That's a time-consuming strategy.

Well, then I know what's going on. I wanted to know what was going on,
so I joined the finance committee, which I knew the least about, and the
international committee and the ... Well, now I’m on the elections
committee. Well, then I started the part-time committee, which has
always been there, but with Eric it had been a tiny little group and I made
it open to everybody. So, it became the First Friday committee. Then what
other committees? The grievance policy committee ... You know, I took
the grievance training. I became a grievance counselor, a grievance
officer, which I still am now two days a week.

So, I started to get into the interstices of the union.

I think you were doing grievances way back in the ‘90s weren’t you?
I first took the grievance training -

- I was an officer of the union and you were doing grievances.

1 was? I don’t remember that.

Yes.

But I remember what I did do is I ran for the welfare committee, the
welfare advisory group, because I saw there’s no adjunct. It was still
Polishook’s regime and J remember going to meetings and arguing with
Polishook about blah-blah-blah. But I remember going on that. So, I kept
trying to insert myself. Yes, and no, you know, I mean it was successful
and not successful. At BMCC, I worked a lot with Alberta Grossman, and
she was very active and very wonderful. She got lists out of them and, you
know, who were the adjuncts, how many adjuncts were there.

Before the New Caucus formed, we were this little adjunct committee, you
know, CUNY Adjuncts Unite. We were active in the petition campaign to
get an office hour and we published a newspaper ... not a newspaper but
a journal: CUNY Adjunct Alert. You had said that you would want to --I’m
not ready to give all the materials, but I will get some materials to the
archives. Wait, where is it? I brought -- Because I got a kick out of this
one. I brought some of the pins. You know, we had a lot of pins over the
years of this event, that event. Where did I put it? Here ...


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Wow, that's quite a collection of pins. Archives will love this because
there are - for recording purposed - I'll say there are at least two dozen
in here.

Twenty ... yeah, yeah.

Pins of different sorts.

Well, pins of different events that we were pushing or activating for.
Both, New Caucus and also adjunct.

Yeah.

Well, that's great. You’ll contribute that to the Archives.

You know: “Full time justice for part time faculty”

Yes, that's a good slogan.

And then the health insurance, which was a very big campaign here, very
big. And then, you know, “I am PSC.” I'll have more because | have tons at
home. So, then I became a liaison for AAUP and for AFT as, you know ... In
other words, the adjunct started to emerge a little stronger, right?

Right. Okay, well let’s get to the issues that you’ve been facing. What were
the major issues when you came to CUNY?

Well, when I started in ’88, I was aware of the health insurance ... Well,
first of all, it seemed like you had to work forever to get a pension, and it
wasn’t now where ... It was like very long and one year didn’t count as a
year, it was like seven ... | remember --

It wasn’t compulsory?

No, no, nothing was compulsory, but Clarissa came and told us how long
the waiting period was. | thought that's bad. The adjuncts were
organizing about health insurance, about pensions, so I got involved.
That's when I got in touch with Alberta and I started working at BMCC to
maybe change things a little. So, I believe at that time I remember fighting
for shortening the health insurance eligibility period. I also became aware
that it wasn’t like an automatic thing to become a union member. We


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fought with Polishook. I know he’s your friend. Is he okay now or not?
Because I’ve seen him at those concerts and looked bad.

No, he’s not well.

Not well. He was very stingy with the union cards. People had to, you
know, beg him to get a union card. There was no campaign. His point of
view, like Sandy Cooper’s point of view, because I talked to her too, was
we don’t want to burden the adjunct with deducting dues, that at that
time they felt that a lot of the adjuncts were graduate students and they
had, you know, little money. That was the rationale. Then one of the first
things that PSC did when they came in was to do agency fee from part
timers.

The New Caucus.

The New Caucus, I mean, when the New Caucus came in. But before that it
was a big fight. When we came in 2000, when the New Caucus came in in
2000, there were ... And I have some statistics from Diana [Rosato] ... [in]
May 2001, there were 915 total adjunct members and grad members; 853
adjuncts, 62 grads, 915. So, then we got it up. In October 2001, because of
the thing [PSC inclusion], we had 6,815. Now, they weren’t all members.
There were 4,719 were fee payers, but we had gotten 2,025 people to sign
cards.

Now that's still a problem. I want to say that.

Well, at that point, I should ask you about the dues. There was a change
when the New Caucus came in.

Well, they changed it from 1.05 percent, which were the dues for all. Well,
no, there was like 86 ... There was some sort of set dues, you know, for
everybody who was a member.

Prior to 2000?

Yeah, yeah, and then once they passed a resolution, they said okay
adjuncts will pay one percent and full-timers will pay 1.05 ... Was it “O”
five or five?

Yes, 1.05 and this meant, of course, that adjunct dues were reduced for
most adjuncts because [the former flat dues had been higher. ]


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Well, because they had been paying like a flat -
Because it went to a percentage rather than a flat fee.

A flat fee, right. I don’t know if it really was reduced because I don’t know
how many people ... well, some people were only teaching one course,
right, or two?

Oh, I think it was reduced which is why so many more adjuncts were able
to join.

Well, I don't know. I hear you. I’m not sure about whether the money was
the biggest thing or the concept, the understanding you’re going have a
union representing you. I mean that was the goal of the New Caucus;
we're going to represent you. Their first act was to collect money and say
okay ... And then also they elected a couple of adjuncts to the executive
committee. Up to that time it had only been one adjunct, Susan Frager and
she only got a half a day release time, you know, to do grievances as well.

Then Eric started to come in and realized this is a lot of work. This was
more than three hours. So then when I came in J fought for more time,
payment for time. That's when I quit my LIU job because I couldn't teach
12 credits there and 12 credits here and also do any kind of legitimate
work. Also, I then became eligible for social security. So, I traded social
security and the payment here for teaching at LIU, which was not a
tragedy for me because it was always a big deal to teach at two [colleges].
So, I was teaching four classes a semester, or sometimes the classes were
six hours. You know, they were remedial classes, but, it was a long haul.

Okay, so on the issues for adjuncts you mentioned healthcare, which came
through the welfare fund that started in 1986. What are some of the other
issues? Salaries, of course, wages are always very low.

Well, it was also the professional hour. There was no office pay, and that
was a gigantic campaign in 2001. When the New Caucus first took power,
I remember others and I organized a hearing before the senate [New York
State Senate], the legislative higher education committee. Ed Sullivan was
the only one who showed up but we kept him [for 8 hours]. It was
tristate. It was a big deal and that's one of the pieces that I’m going to
submit to the archive, is the testimony of all those people all day.

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Ten in the morning until 6:00 at night from every college, private and
public. It was a big deal and I felt very proud when students testified, you
know, saying how much the adjuncts had done for them. Because there
was then and there still is a terrible ghettoization of the adjunct, you
know, that the adjunct is not good enough; the adjunct is less than; the
adjunct is somehow not part of the club. Then when PSC wanted the
contracts, we got 100 adjunct conversions lines to lecturer and then in
another contract we got 100. All together, I think there were 200 or 250
conversion lines.

We have 25 in this contract but they’re not surfacing [enforcing] it. You
know, and I would talk to some of the people who had gotten them and I
said, “So what’s so different?” I mean obviously, they had some job
security and more money, but the biggest thing they said to me was,
“Well, now they talk to me,” meaning the full-timers. They talk to me.

Because they were now full time lecturers instead of adjuncts.

Yeah, well, they had status. They were seen as colleagues. Before as an
adjunct, you’re just passing in the night, even though some of these
adjuncts had been there god knows, 20 ... I was there for 30 years. They
don’t talk to me either, really. I mean, you know, they know me and they
wanted to have me come for a drink for the [Christmas] party but I didn’t
come. | felt angry. I was busy, but also, I felt, look, you didn’t even offer
me a sub-line so that I could have retired with health insurance. | felt that
there wasn’t enough appreciation.

Why do you think that was the case, that full-timers --?

Oh, why do I think, because I think it’s guilt. I think you hold on to
meritocracy just like you hold on to white privilege, or Christian privilege,
because you're afraid that if you let it go your heart’s going to break.
You're going to have to fight against the system. That's what’s going on
now, wanting to hold on to actual privilege that seemed to have
diminished, you know, with both -

Substantially.

- academia and in the body politic. ] mean these people are holding on to
prejudice and to vileness. But you see, and that's what I’ve been thinking
about, looking at. Another thing I’m going to give you, not today, but is


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this ... In ’98 or so there was an international group started, COCAL,
Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor. In 2015, or whenever the hell it
was, we hosted it. Well, 98, we hosted it here. And Manny Ness, who runs
the Journal of [Society and Labor], let us have a whole issue devoted to
contingent stuff, write articles about contingency.

COCAL represented in the beginning, the U.S. and Canada. Then it
included Mexico, so there were two COCALs so far in Mexico, one or two,
and there’s still going to be another one. Every other year there’s a
conference, so there is an international perspective. And these articles are
really interesting so, I think they should be in the archive and I’ll get them
there.

Absolutely.

Because Mexico is even worse than [the U.S.] It’s all over. There’s 77
percent of the workforce, 76 here ... It’s just out there and what does it
mean?

Well, now adjuncts teach the majority of the courses in CUNY, yeah. So, is
it 77 percent?

Yeah, well that's nationwide. At CUNY I think it’s 60 percent in the
community colleges, but, you see, it’s adjuncts are still considered an
afterthought. I mean Barbara [Bowen] has been brilliant and forceful with
the legislature. But the whole thrust has been we've lost full time lines
and that's appropriate. But there’s not been an equal thrust. We’ve got
people working in poverty wages. You know, we have transformed the
university into a proletariat. Because the thought that, well, there aren’t
enough full time lines somehow was thought to have more appeal to the
legislators than saying stop treating teachers as peons.

I don't know, but it’s still a problem. This latest budget request is saying
$7,000 a course, you know, and in the latest contract that three-year
appointments, which had created a lot of issues for people, for adjuncts,
long time adjuncts who feel they won’t get those three-year
appointments, and there isn’t a real grievance process. We feel there will
be, but still, even when people get their Ph.Ds they stop me on the street
and say, “I’m getting $300 more, and that's it. I’m an assistant adjunct

”

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I know AFT and AAUP both have called for equivalency so that an adjunct
would be paid the equivalent amount that a full-timer would be paid.

Right, parity, even minus research, but parity for classroom work, which
right now, we get paid about one-third, approximately. So of course, even
if you were there for many, like top step ... You know what, I have two
master’s degrees but it doesn't count, two steps. So, it’s $4,000 a course,
three hour or four hour. Then you’re stuck in poverty or semi-poverty, or
gentile poverty. Like right now, I’m retired. I have to live on social
security. I don’t get my healthcare paid for, so I have to get that deducted.
So, I get a small pension, very small because of being an adjunct, and I
have the little extra work here, but it’s like not middle class in terms of
money.

Especially in New York City.
Well, I have a rent-stabilized apartment.

Well, I’ve noticed over the years that ... And this leads to my next question
.. that CUNY was more resistant to making changes for adjuncts than in
any other area.

Well because they want their “flexible labor.” This last round, when I was
on the negotiating team for a long time, but in the last round, where we
were fighting for the three-year appointment and the temporary two-
year appointment for very long-term people, they went berserk. And at
2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning the chief negotiator, said, “We’re
used to carte blanche.” She said that, carte blanche. You order what you
want from the menu. There’s no prix fixe. You’re ordering what you want,
and so they don’t want to give that up. Because the three-year
appointment is a commitment to that particular adjunct that even if you
don’t have courses, or you feel that, you know, you’re not getting enough
enrollment somehow you have to do something for that adjunct to give
them the equivalent of six hours and health insurance if they get it.

They don’t want that. That’s it, and on top of not wanting to give it, they
want to blame the adjunct for being an adjunct, especially if the adjunct
relies on the adjunct [teaching for their primary income.] Like we had in
our department a woman who was the chair of some department at Pratt,
or something like that, and she was adjuncting. Well, good for her, you

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know. She was adjuncting as a little extra. But if there’s somebody who’s
depending on adjuncting, that's not okay.

And that is the case for most people.

We never got to most. We can’t put it in numbers you know. Well, there
are over 2,000 who get the health insurance. So, in order to get the health
insurance, although some people are screwing around with it ... Some
people are fudging it. They’re a chiropractor who teaches two health
courses and is getting our insurance because he’s teaching six hours but
he really should be getting it through his practice, and Larry went crazy
with that - the entrepreneurs.

If there are 13,000 adjuncts now ... And here are the latest numbers from
December 6, 2016. We've got 14,397 adjuncts. Now, remember we
started with the New Caucus after we got going with 6815. So we got
more than double. Now this includes continuing ed people, which wasn’t
included in that, but you understand what that means?

Yes, it’s more than doubled.

And that hurts me. I feel oh, well, we lost. CUNY won. They have more
flexible labor, even if they have to, fix it a little, with the three-year
appointments. They still got more flexible labor, not less.

But is it flexible labor that's also cheap labor?
Well, so that's equal.
Do they pay bills through the adjuncts?

The flexible equals poverty. Do they [adjuncts] pay their bills too? If the
adjunct is sitting in a course with 36 people and [CUNY is] getting FTEs
[Full-time equivalent] for those people - the value that the adjunct is
giving them is like 12 times what they’re earning. Because of this
interview I was thinking about it a lot: this is the essence of capitalism.
It’s just the essence. It’s a microcosm and it’s the essence and it’s
rationalized, and it’s rationalized by everybody. Rationalized by CUNY
administration, who act, when you're in a negotiating session with them,
they act as if they own CUNY. They’re like Exxon. I couldn't believe it
when I got into those meetings. They thought they owned CUNY and we
were the employees. The fact that they’re civil servants or civil employees

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was not in their consciousness. That was one thing. So that's CUNY acting
as if they own us.

Then there’s the full-timers who rely on their meritocracy to the idea of,
well, | got my Ph.D. and I’ve published some articles. Let’s not talk about
the value of all the adjuncts, but that makes me entitled to privilege and
these people are, you know, the servants and they’re lucky to have a job
at all. And most of them aren’t good enough. And when the choice comes
to make them a lecturer we say no, we don’t want them around. It’s okay
that they’re there but we don’t really want them at department meetings.

This is a problem. This is such a deep problem, but it’s no different than
the rest of America. If you’re poor, it’s your fault. It’s not the system and
you're not going to do anything to change the system. PSC has tried. I
believe in getting that health insurance thing, let me tell you, but they sat
at meetings for a year. And if we hadn’t endorsed de Blasio at the
beginning, we would have never gotten that health [insurance]. He
pushed. We just, with that guy ... Who’s the head, the chief labor guy, his
guy? I forgot his name but we had to push.

Robert Linn.
Yeah.

Well, Steve London had been working on that issue since 2000 without
success until Mayor DeBlasio was elected.

I know. Well, Steve was trying to prove to people, you know, that the
welfare fund couldn't handle it, you know, that it was not going to get to
the point of no return because of the insurance companies and all that. I
remember once I saw you at a DA meeting or after, and another full timer
came over to you, and said ... Because Steve had taken some of the, the
executive committee, the negotiating team, had taken some of the retro
pay and put it into the welfare fund.

I mean the retirees cost plenty for their insurance. Well, the drain on the
welfare fund, but this guy said to you, you know, that people were furious
that they didn’t really know ahead of time that we were doing that. It kind
of snuck up on them. This guy said to you, “You know, why did they do
that? What did they do?” And you said, “Well, it’s because it’s the right
thing.” You said that. I overheard it and I was very impressed but that’s

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not the common--Like after we got pregnancy leave, we had people
screaming and moaning, “Well, I didn’t’ get pregnancy leave.” You know,
they don’t want anybody to have anything better than they did. There’s
no sense of the body politic. The commons, social welfare, that's a
problem, a big problem, and so, like anybody else, I want to blame
someone.

You know, some of the adjuncts are blaming Barbara. You know they’re
doing a PERB complaint. You know that, right?

Yes, I’ve heard about it in passing. I don’t know much about it.

It annoys me to no end because they are saying that Barbara didn’t fully
inform adjuncts before they voted on the contract on the three-year
business of being out. You either, you get your appointment or you get a
one-year probation, but then you're out. They made it like tenure, that
either you qualify for the three year. You can’t come back as a one year.
You know, you can’t keep going, and we fought that at bargaining team
and all of the people, the voting members of the ... There were three
adjuncts on the negotiating team.

After the fight, we realized that if you kept the one-year and you kept it
through, you know, people would opt out because they don’t want the
scrutiny. Even though I say to people, “You’ve been teaching for 20 years.
You're not lying.” I mean that's the thing that impresses me very much
with adjuncts, most of them; they’re trying to do a good job which is
unbelievable that these people are getting paid nothing, or very little, and
they’re trying to do a good job.

Would you explain for the listener what the three-year provision is and
how it changes what existed before? That’s in the current contract.

In the current contract, it’s a pilot program for five years or so, and it’s
says that if an adjunct passes ... If you’re going to reappoint an adjunct
after they’ve done 10 semesters, five years, 10 semesters, continuously
with six credit appointments at least for each semester, that you give
them a three-year contract. Up until now, it was only a one-year contract.
And that, in order to get the three-year contract that person has to be ...
You know, they have to look at their record. The P and B [Personnel and
Budget Committee] of a given department has to look at their record, and
then the president has to approve it.

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But it doesn't have to be extra. You don’t have to do anything extra, really.
In other words, up to now, you’ve only been observed once [every
semester] for five years, and then you don't have to be observed. So, there
are people who have been there for 30 years that we observed 10, 15,
years ago. And so, they have to now either be observed, you know, look at
their record, look at the student evaluations, and then, yes, you get a
three-year. You get a three-year. You’re guaranteed six hours of semester.
If the courses don’t fill up ... somehow, the department, the college has to
make it up. Either give them money or give them an extra course
somewhere and do something? That’s a big deal, a three-year guarantee
versus a one-year, but it only applies to maybe, again, like with the health
insurance at the beginning, you know, maybe 2,000. I mean Steve
[London] figured every inch out, you know.

And so, a lot of people aren’t going to be eligible but they can be accruing
to that so that, theoretically, if you looked at the end of five years, or you
looked down the road, you say, “Well, CUNY is a place that has mostly
adjuncts with some guarantee of employment.”

Now, wouldn't everyone who has the 10 semesters apply for this three-
year -?

Well, they don’t apply. You get to be eligible. You don’t have a choice
unless you quit.

Right, so youre eligible and then the P and B automatically considers you.
And suppose they say no?

Well, they can also decide at that time to give you a one-year ... So, if
somebody observes you and says, “Hey, this person is really horrible.
Even if they’ve been here for 20 years, they really need to do A, B, C, D.”
So, they send someone. They give them a mentor. They do something to
coach that person, and then they look at them again.

I mean I just had a conversation yesterday with somebody who didn’t get
two classes ... | mean they’d been decreasing his job ... He was at nine,
now he has three. He’s writing letters to everybody and he’s bitching and
moaning. I just talked to the chair ... not the chair of the department yet,
but the committee curriculum person who runs his course. The guy’s
been a disaster, you know.

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Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

So maybe he shouldn’t be getting even a reappointment.

That's what the curriculum person said, that he hasn’t even turned his
grades from last semester, that, you know, he shouldn't even be teaching
this thing. You see, so a lot of people, because they need ... and she said to
me ... I said, “So, why have you kept hiring him?” She said, “Well, at the
last minute ...” That's not okay, right? So, a lot of these people, these big
departments where, you know, you've got to observe everybody once
[every semester] in the first five year, they don’t have enough full-timers
to observe all these people.

You see, part of the problem of this density of adjuncts is that you put
more workload on the full-timers to do committee work, to do
observations. And yet they’re still supposed to do their research.

Oh yes, that is absolutely the case. It does put a heavier load on the full-
timers.

And that’s why if you could give adjuncts some parity, and also give them,
you know, money for committee work, they would be more integrated,
you know, and they'd be adding to the department. You know, they’re
going to go online big time before they go into governance. Governance
and online are totally threatened. Meanwhile all the proliferation of
deans, you know, and this and that, it’s really tough.

Well, CUNY is only a microcosm of the whole country.
Exactly.
It’s happening everywhere.

No totally, but you see it’s holding on. It’s holding to that ... So, it’s a
smaller and smaller group of people with privilege, but each group with
privilege is behaving the same way, whether you’re the privileged
administration or the privileged faculty. What does it take, you see, and
this is what’s happening now in the country, what does it take to get out
of your comfort zone? When you feel that somehow something so basic is
.. | got involved during the Civil Rights Movement. That's when I was
going to college, Brown versus Board of Ed. I said, “Oh, this is not right. I
can’t wait forever.” And so, I got into that kind of work of teaching,
running a nursery school for black kids.

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Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

But what is it going to take now? I mean I went to the Women’s March
and then I was on the elevator, coming home after seven hours,
exhausted. And there was a lady on the elevator with a card, an elderly
lady with a card and signs. You know, it wasn’t your most likely person
and she said, “Oh, you had to go. It’s 1933.” That's what she felt.

Yeah, in Germany, 1933.
Yeah.

Okay, I want to ask you, a shift to some of the politics of the PSC. You were
part of the New Caucus. Why did you join the New Caucus? Why did you
think it was necessary to have a change of leadership?

Because | thought that Polishook and company were very reactionary,

you know, like that they didn’t want adjuncts in the union, particularly,
even though they couched it as defense of the adjuncts. They were into,
“Let’s make nice.” One thing is I remember Mohamed -

Yusuf

I remember at the welfare fund, and he was so happy that he had gotten
kids, people’s children to go on until 25 or 26, you know, and that was a
good move. But they were all so focused on benefits for the full-timers
they didn’t take [adjuncts] into any account ... and in part, maybe they
didn’t foresee this proliferation. You know, they thought it was graduate
students and professors and that graduate students were really doing
internships, even if they had a whole class to themselves, right? And that
fight at NYU and Columbia, it’s still going on, right, even though the grad
.. And Yale, I mean it seems to be going on. Barnard just voted to
unionize. It’s going to happen.

Well, everybody is going to be unionized but then so what? Are they going
to get more money? Are they going to get more allocations? Are they
going to get real jobs?

Well, we'll see about that because Columbia is fighting it in court, and if
the NLRB changes under Trump, that decision may change too.

Exactly, and look how hard NYU fought.

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Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Yes, to make graduate students - “students” and no longer eligible for
unionization.

I mean that was weird, I mean that they didn’t want to see these people as
employees. But that part of it perpetuates the comfort zone of people who
are comfortable. I don't know, I think, it’s so shortsighted, but it depends
what your sights are. I think the sights of the people who voted for Trump
and the sights of the people who want things to stay as they want an
oligarchy, they want a king to tell them what to do, how to do it, and that's
what’s happening now. Because the people who were for Trump are still
for Trump even though he is behaving like [a] maniac.

Oh yeah. They may not be for him two years from now but right now they
still support him 100 percent.

And you live in New Jersey, right?
Yes.
Where do you live?

In Bergen County. As a matter of fact, our congressman was unseated. We
unseated a very conservative Republican congressman. Josh Gottheimer
was one of the few Democrats to win in 2016. He unseated a 15, 16-year
incumbent. So, my district ran against the trend.

Yeah, well, you’re living close to my friend’s cousin, right, David
Zimmerman’s friend, his cousin Dory or ...

Dory [Gerber].

Yeah.

Yes, she’s a good friend, actually.

Well, her cousin I went to college with. We're friends, yeah.

Well, in 2000 the New Caucus took over. Do you think they’ve done a
respectable job in meeting the adjunct needs?

It’s very problematic. I think they’ve done their best given the situation,
given they’re accepting the basic situation that there are going to be
adjuncts. If there’s not enough money, that we want to preserve tenure,

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Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

we want to preserve the academy, as we know it. So, we’re going to try to
make some situations better for adjuncts, like the fight for the
professional hour, the fight for the adjunct health insurance, the fight for
a higher pay, you know. And one of the contracts there was a greater
percentage to those stuck at the top.

And now the three-year appointment and the contract enforcement,
which wasn’t really there, but it’s still a drop in the bucket because of
14,397. Then in the fight that Steve [London] was very adamant about,
the nine-six, you know, the workload, they, meaning the leadership, did
not want to increase the work because CUNY had been abusing the
waivers. That became a very big issue that adjuncts were supposed to do
nine hours at one school and one six-hour course at the other. But if the
college wanted them to do more than that they could file for a waiver.

We realized at one point there were 500 waivers in a semester, most of
them from Staten Island, not most, but a lot from Staten Island, because
they were abusing the waiver policy just like they were abusing the
substitute policy of keeping people in sub-lines forever so they didn’t
have to pay them the full-- So, Steve in particular wanted to catch them,
and we did. You know the [contract] enforcement committee and and
Debra Bergan, we got lists and we said to Judy, “You’re violating the
contract by doing so many waivers and we're going to sue you.” Then we
went to arbitration and it was clear that - because the deal was if an
adjunct teaches a full-time load, you have to pay them as a full-timer and
CUNY was violating that with this waiver.

And so, we got up to arbitration and the arbitrator said, “You guys settle
it.” So, we had them over the barrel there and that was when the adjunct
insurance came. So, we did a trade. Rather than pursue that legal thing,
which we were right about, you know, make them pay all those people,
we had them contributing to the health insurance package.

Okay, let’s say a bit more about the health insurance because that goes
way back to ’86. It was originally a welfare fund program.

I know that.

And would you explain the importance of having it changed to a New
York City program.

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Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Well, because we couldn't afford it ... the welfare fund could no longer
carry it. The health insurance companies [costs] had gone up so
exponentially so that now, COBRA, if you need to get COBRA, you know,
you're not teaching, it’s like $700 a month or something for one person.
Adjuncts can’t afford that. If you’re making $3,000 for a course, you know,
where are you getting that money? And so, the welfare fund couldn't do it,
so then it was a question of whether we drop the adjuncts. But
somewhere in the fine print it says that CUNY has to pay something for
this adjunct thing, so we got them on that.

You know, you've got to pay; therefore, you’ve got to cooperate. In the
beginning, when we first broached them [Mayor Michael Bloomberg] on a
city plan, CUNY turned on us. They said yes one minute. They were like
Trump. They said yes one minute and no when it came to sitting at the
table, all right. But this time it was just a miracle ... not a miracle. It was
just endless work and it was de Blasio. It was de Blasio.

I think it was, yes. In this case, he was the crucial factor.
Yes, because he instructed his people to give Barbara what she wants.

Well, you might mention that the PSC was the first union to support de
Blasio when he was still in the primaries, before he ran for mayor.

Yeah, exactly right, because somehow, we realized his value, that he had a
progressive mind. And then, of course, he got blown away by Cuomo, who
hated him. Now maybe they'll get a little bit together, you know, in the
face of the larger gorilla, and we just endorsed him again, last week. It
was a fight. It wasn’t unanimous at the DA. You see, but the other thing
that I’ve realized in all of this that most people, most workers at CUNY,
adjuncts, HEOs, the whole bit, are not that conscious of the mechanism of
the governance here, of the PSC. Most adjuncts, they don’t even know how
much they earn. They don’t know their rights until it becomes too late.

Like now with the bonus business and the ratification, well hell, I don't
know, you know. So, they don’t read the fine print. I once wrote an article
for one of the newspapers, AAUP or somewhere, that they’re like
romantics, these adjuncts.

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Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Well, this is true for full-timers also. When I was Chapter Chair at City
College I was amazed at how little the full-timers knew of their own
benefits under the contract.

Exactly. They only come to know when they’re retiring and they went to
see Clarissa [Weiss] or they now go to see Jared [Herst] and they ... “Oh,
this, that.” I should have done the tax deferred annuity 30 years ago. I
didn’t. I only did it whenever. I mean that’s like an incredible boon for
people, so that's a problem. That's like the United States. That’s like the
people of the United States, right, and that’s why they’re able to just to do
one little sleight of hand after another. It’s very sad.

I mean, I don't know, maybe what’s happening now will change that with
all these lawyers that are coming down with this provision and that
provision. I mean can you believe this? I mean, you know, Trump is
yelling at the Pope.

Well, that won’t help him down the road.

So, the nine-six, the workload, became a big issue, a very big divisive
issue. And it still is because it’s one thing to have a principle ... The idea
was you keep to four courses. You don’t let anybody teach more than four
courses because you don’t want full-timers to have to teach more than
four courses. But meanwhile the adjunct who was getting the waiver is
being deprived of another $5,000 or $4,000, and if you’re earning alow
income that makes it difference for you. Never mind that it may be bad for
your health and bad for your student to teach seven courses, but
nevertheless, you're surviving. So, where’s the answer to that, you see? So
meanwhile, a full-timer can take an overload and an adjunct can’t get a
waiver. Well, we have had a lot of fights on that one.

I can understand that.
You know, because it’s, again, keeping part of the status quo.
Yes, I think relatively few full-timers do take on an overload, but some do.

When we tried to take it away ... There was one contract thing where we
took ... At BMCC they were up in arms because they needed the extra
money, the full-timers, to do whatever.

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Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Yes, I think in the community colleges I’m sure there was more overload
teaching than at the senior colleges.

Because they were earning less you think, or why?

No, because I think they didn’t put as much emphasis on scholarship and
research, although there is a scholarship and research requirement, but it
isn’t as high as in the senior [colleges.]

I understand. Now are you familiar with this ... He does a lot of TED talks
.. Ken Robinson? He’s British.

No.

Well, he came here. He’s a big education name. You know, “what is
college?” and “what is higher ed?”, and is everybody supposed to be into a
certain mold to be intelligent?

No, I don’t know his work. Okay, let me follow another line, and that is
within the PSC. Have adjuncts been active within the PSC, not only you
but others.

More than before but not enough. Much more than before, but before
meaning in the Polishook days. Now we have a liaison project where
adjuncts get paid to be at each college to be the liaison. We had about 17
or 19 people on the delegate assembly who were part-timers of one sort
or another. I don’t know how many ... Well, we'll see in April. We
encourage people to run all the time but it’s extra work. It’s no pay. It’s
time. So, more and more people have gotten agitated.

Now, it’s unfortunate that some of the people who’ve gotten active have
used their energy to be against the PSC, you know, like in the PERB
charge. And you’ve been at DAs. You’ve heard Holly and others, right?

Oh, yes, I have.

You know, it seems like we’re the enemy. You know, I find that not
intelligent.

Well, you and I were talking about this before we started the recording.
But in the ‘90s there was a strong movement among adjuncts in CUNY to
have a separate union, and I don’t know whether that’s come up again
this time but -

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Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Well, yes, it comes up periodically.

I wonder what the arguments were for a separate union in the 1990s,
what your position was on it, and do you think it’s better that adjuncts be
within the PSC?

Well, I think the AFT data has shown that adjuncts in mixed unions
generally do better. I don’t know where the adjunct ... first of all, the
decertification process, which Vinny [Vincent Tirelli] has written about -

Vincent Tirelli.

Yeah, in his Ph.D. thesis and outside. It takes years because no other
union will touch you for the period in which you’re decertifying, and
where are you going to get the money? And if there are so few activists
now, are they going to get more? Here this union has gotten them health
insurance. The union is getting them a pension and it gives them services.
You know, they can call Jared, they can do this, they can do that. They can
get grievance-- You're going to take that away and where’s the budget
coming from?

I mean the strength of the argument for decertification ... and there are
some unions in California, etcetera, that are independent, but you have to
have a base and you have to have a source of money. I mean the argument
is that, well, if you did have those things you would have the clout. “Hey,
we provide 77 percent, 60 percent of the teachers. Give us this. Give us
that.” But then you’d be setting the full-timers against the part-timers
even more articulately. I don't know. I just don’t know if it’s feasible.

Well, we have a model in our area, Nassau Community College.
Yeah, but Nassau Community College -
How does that work with the separate union?

Well, first of all, they were on the take because of what’s his name,
[D’Amato]. They had all kinds of access to money. They had all kinds of
deals, that’s what my understanding, and that now -

They may have a separate adjunct union and a union for full timers.

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Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Yeah, but now they’re not doing so well, that adjunct union. You know,
they were an anomaly. Now, the one in California, not so much. I forgot
the name of that union but I don’t think it’s feasible right now.

Well, I certainly agree with you but I know that was -- among adjuncts,
that has been a --

Yeah, but it surfaces -
- persistent alternative course.

Yes, but when you get to the ... What’s the word? When you get to the
nitty-gritty, none of the people who want to certify, decertify, have the
real mechanisms for doing so, for getting over the hurdles.

Yes, because they’d have to set up an entire operation, separate
operation. And, as I mentioned earlier, my experience is that CUNY is
more resistant to making changes for adjuncts, whether it would come
from a separate union or from PSC.

They would sweeten the pie. You see, they would want there to be ...
Because one of these people who are doing the PERB thing wrote to
Silverblatt, as a lawyer, and said, “I don’t want this three-year thing. You
know, I didn’t know that.” Pam answered, “I didn’t want it either”

She probably didn’t.

Are you kidding? She’s the one who said carte blanche. They did not want
it and they still are holding ... They don’t even want to have a grievance
process.

Yes, I agree that CUNY has been very difficult in dealing with adjuncts. In
my opinion, it’s because they’re cheap labor and they help support the
university. So, do you agree with that?

Oh, totally, totally. I mean it’s a mecca in New York City. I went to a
meeting once in California and one of the colleges had forgone their
annual raise in order to give it to the adjuncts. I said, “Why did this
happen? What happened?” And they explained to me that they were
losing people all the time ... they were somehow up in the mountains and
they wanted some stability, so they gave them money to hold them.

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Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

I see, okay. Oh, yes, this question, we have touched on it but I just wanted
to conclude with this, about full time faculty and staff. You said that you
didn’t think that they had been very supportive of adjuncts.

They were supportive about the health insurance, you know, a single
issue. It was a big issue but -

But do you see a way of building good solidarity between adjuncts and
full-timers, because after all, adjuncts now comprise the majority of the
teaching faculty, and yet that hostility I think still does exist.

Well, because they have to realize that it’s like white people and the Civil
Rights Movement. At a certain point, if you don’t have a country with civil
rights laws, if you can’t vote, you know what I mean, it goes on a spectrum
from slavery, where you have the idea that you can own a person and
their labor, to gradual changes, but not enough changes. So, it’s okay to
incarcerate or frisk, you know, a black kid or put him in jail, or have the
schools be blah-blah, until ... Some adjuncts ... A significant amount of
“white people” start to realize this is not in our benefit and it’s not to our
benefit. It is against our country. It is against our values. There’s
something wrong with this, right? It’s not moving us ahead. Then, as the
black people got more opportunity, look how much they’ve achieved, you
know, for the body, for the whole world. Why would you keep depriving a
group of growth, and that's what the full-timers have to realize with the
adjuncts.

Well, the unions certainly agree with you. When you look at AFT, you look
at NYSUT, PSC, they all say ... AAUP ... they all support a greater equity for
adjuncts and support for adjuncts by full-timers.

And governance. But between that support and the actual doing of it ...
because would people have to make sacrifice? That's the big thing. What
kind of sacrifices? Would it entail a sacrifice? On the other hand, you say,
well, or would it entail a shared push to, you know, the millionaire’s tax or
this tax or that to get them? And that’s where Barbara is going, get them
to give us two billion; they meaning the ... Whether the legislature the full
.. Do they want everybody to flourish or do they want to hold on to their
meritocracy?

I don't know. That's a question for the future. We'll see that. Well, I think
we've reached the end, unless you want to add anything.

24


Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Marcia:

Irwin:

Well, I think the thing that disturbs me the most is the fact that despite
the PSC’s progressive stance and actions, the number of adjuncts has
more than doubled. That, to me, is the great pain, and so there are more
and more people living on less. I mean I don’t really care and so therefore,
the teaching job is devalued, and the enrichment of teaching is devalued.

This is nationwide. I think, as you mentioned earlier, higher education has
become a business and cheap labor is part of a business, and adjuncts
fulfill that in higher education.

Right, and then it’s going now towards more online, which makes it even
more impersonal and robotic. You know it becomes what’s the goal for
humanity? It becomes that kind of question.

Yeah, well certainly for higher-ed, I think if we were to do this interview
in 30 years we would be talking about an entirely different landscape
from what we see now.

Yeah, but see, also the question has come up at various conferences, well,
why continue these Ph.D. programs, because that's another victim? That’s
another group of people who are held in perpetual sort of servitude. I
mean I’ve met people from Yale in the post doc world, you know, and
they’re hanging in year to year.

I believe about one-third of the faculty in the United States is now
tenured. The other two-thirds are either full-timers who do not have
tenure or adjuncts, or graduate students, other contingent forms of
teaching. And that's a remarkable change. When I began in higher
education, almost 100 percent were full time tenured, and there was just
a sprinkling of adjuncts who filled in specialized courses and so on.

Right. So, what do you think the answer is?

Well, the answer is that a strong union movement has to fight these
changes. Unfortunately, higher ed is not unionized, in the main, and
therefore the changes go on without any brakes from the faculty at all.
But even when you do have a union, unions don’t control the institution.
They’re not management and so they can only slow down the
progression. But I think in the end, as I say, 30 years from now I would
expect that there will be very few full-time college professors and we will

25


have online courses and adjunct teachers. It will be quite different from
today and quite different from when you and I began.

Marcia: Well, it’s also the idea of human contact of being in a classroom and with
a person.
Irwin: Absolutely. It will be a different form of education, a lesser form, except

maybe for a few elite colleges, which will be private colleges that will
keep the old system and have students pay a fortune in order to go there.

Marcia: That's what they’re doing now.

Irwin: As they do now, right. Well, thanks very much Marcia. I appreciate your
coming in and doing this interview. Thank you very much.

[End of recorded material 01:03:22]

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