October 17, 1986

Dear Part-Timers:

Are you Satisfied with your working conditions as a CUNY part-timer? If you're not, the
Part-Time Instructional and Research Staff Union (PTU) offers you an alternative.

For too many years we part-timers have been denied proper wages, job security, medical
benefits, pension, unemployment benefits, timely notification of employment, and the right to
participate as professionals in any policy-making decisions at CUNY. Like migrant workers, we
have accepted these conditions with an "it comes with the territory" attitude. Many of us have
resigned ourselves to this exploitation, as if it were our fate. Newly appointed part-timers are often
not even aware of this exploitation. At first, the satisfaction of teaching at the college level, and the
belief that there will be a permanent future ahead, obscure the realities of part-time employment.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC) -- the union that claims to represent us -- on rare
occasions throws a benefit our way. These so-called benefits do little or nothing to improve our
working conditions; they only help to obscure further our real situation. The most recent example
of this was the announcement that part-time faculty are now entitled to receive paid medical
benefits. At first, the PSC stated that the only part-time faculty who were eligible were those who
had taught ten consecutive semesters in the same department, and had taught six hours (almost
always two courses) each semester. The requirement was recently lowered, however, to six
consecutive semesters in the same college, because so few were eligible to enroll in the original
program. We in the PTU have always maintained that the new benefit is a sham; it is so restrictive
that few will qualify, even with the change. It seems to be a provision negotiated into the contract
to quiet the unrest among part-timers.

And there is unrest among us -- healthy unrest, the kind that brings about change. We are
living under arrangements made by others to suit a different time, a time when part-timers
composed only a small percentage of the overall faculty at CUNY. Since the 1975 New York City
fiscal crisis, however, CUNY has relied on part-timers to save the University, to paraphrase
Vice-Chancellor Joseph Vivona. We have carried the University on our backs for long enough. It
is time for us to get a fair shake for our commitment and great contribution.

We in the PTU are actively making plans to change the present order, and we need you to
join us so that your voice will be heard, so that your future will be ensured. The PTU is a growing
force dedicated to improving the living and working conditions of all part-time instructional and
research staff at CUNY. We argue that this goal can only be achieved by forming an independent
union. Working with the PSC has proved impossible. The PSC's record speaks for itself, and we
need not convince you that it does not bespeak a great commitment to part-timers. Every attempt
made by part-timers to reform the PSC from within has been suppressed. We need our own union.

However, before we can challenge the PSC in an election, one third of the |
5,000 part-timers at CUNY must sign PTU authorization/membership cards. In| |
effect, signing a card is like signing a candidate's petition to get on the ballot. It |
is a vote in favor of placing the PTU in.an electoral contest with the PSC. It is a/
vote for a choice, something part-timers have never yet had.


TIME IS RUNNING OUT. The deadline for filing PTU cards with the New
York State Public Employees Relations Board is NOVEMBER 30, 1986. You


must sign and date the enclosed card and send it back immediately if we are to
make the deadline. Your card will be kept CONFIDENTIAL. PSC members are
eligible to join, as are part-timers who have taught within the last three years but
are not teaching this semester. Please, sign the card now and give yourself your
first opportunity for real representation. We are also greatly in need of funds to
help pay for our lawyers' fees, typing, mailing and copying costs, and other
expenses. Please help with a donation; but even if you cannot, please mail in

your card without delay.

i.
pfhey aor

Jeffrey Gerson
President, PTU

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PART-TIME INSTRUCTIONAL AND RESEARCH STAFF UNION
P.O. Box 2314, New York, N.Y. 10009

Application for Membership and Union Authorization

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with work:
I hereby accept membership in the Part-Time Instructional and Research Staff please
Union and designate the Part-Time Instructional and Research Staff Union to contact
act for me as a collective bargaining agent in all matters pertaining to con- Mese.”

ditions and terms of employment. I hereby pledge to abide by the constitution
of the Part-Time Instructional and Research Staff Union.

SIGNED DAVE Bi ie OM DO

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GET MORE INFORMATION FROM SOMEONE ON YOUR CAMPUS...
Call any of the following people:

Staten Island Wendy Hoefler (718) 448-2549 Queens Sally O'Driscoll (212) 254-1094
City College Jim Ciment (212) 677-9147 Brooklyn Jeff Gerson (718) 763-0343
N.Y.C. Tech Rocco Serini (718) 624-5000 Brooklyn Ron Lehrer (718) 377-0631
Medgar Evers Harry McArdle (516) 744-5332 BMCC Lorraine Riordan (212) 995-0008
Bronx C.C./ Pam Ansaldi (212) 543-2978 York Paul Wagner (718) 651-7047
Lehman Me rita hin John Jay Michael Seitz (212) 645-7850

LaGuardia Jim McCabe (718) 768-1038 Baruch Ron Hayduk (212) 254-2258