CUNY Adjunct Alert

Vol. 1, No. 5

February 1998

Produced by CUNY Adjuncts Unite!
33 W 42nd St. NYC, NY 10036 room 400 212/642-2143

Office Hours Demonstration

The day has come! On Friday, Feb. 13 at noon the CUNY Adjuncts Unite! Office Hours campaign
will culminate in a demonstration and press conference at CUNY Central (535 East 80th St.). At that time
we will be turning in hundreds of signed time sheets demanding pay for office hours worked during the
Fall semester. As most of us know, adjuncts at CUNY are not paid to hold office hours but most do so
anyway because of their professional commitment and moral obligation to their students. How can we
raise standards at CUNY if over half of the faculty are not available to meet with students? It’s time that
the CUNY administration acknowledge the importance of out-of-class contact for the educational
experience of students and faculty. If you still haven’t sent in your time sheet, please do. They can be
obtained from your campus rep. on the back or give us a call. Everyone is strongly encouraged to attend
this important demonstration, and to bring along as many supporters as possible.

Unemployment Insurance and You

Here’s the deal on collecting unemployment insurance
as an adjunct in CUNY: If you’re not registered as a
graduate student, and you worked any twenty-six of the past
fifty-two weeks, you’re probably eligible for unemployment
insurance whenever you're not working, including summers
and winters between semesters.

If you qualify, you are entitled to half of your average
weekly salary for the past year. As an adjunct you’re paid
by the contact hour, so you don’t water down your salary
average by including weeks you graded papers, or prepared
syllabii, but were not being paid. If you were paid to grade
assessment tests (e.g. Math, Reading, Writing) or to do work
that occupied only part of a week, you may still be eligible
for partial benefits for that week.

Unfortunately, however, for graduate students CUNY
maintains an outrageous anti-employee position. If you are
registered in any graduate school, you are arguably
ineligible for unemployment insurance since there is a New
York State law specifically excluding students who are
working “for the institution they attend.” Some CUNY
students have argued in court that attending the Graduate
Center and teaching at one of the campuses does not
constitute working for the institution they attend. They have
lost. In fact, even if you’re a graduate student at Columbia
and working in CUNY the law has been interpreted such
that you’re ineligible, according to Dr. Susan Prager, PSC
Vice President for Part-time Personnel. If you claim benefits
anyway, flouting this inequitable law, you may go
undetected by CUNY. Or CUNY may go after you years
later in an effort to reclaim their money. Most companies
don’t care how many employees claim unemployment since

they contribute to an insurance fund which covers all
claimants. But CUNY has opted to insure itself. In other
words, CUNY pays your benefits from its own funds,
giving it a strong incentive to contest claims. It should be
noted that there are many other general requirements for
unemployment insurance eligibility. Go to the
unemployment office during your first week out of work,
and plan to spend many hours there learning the rules.

Caucus Alert! This past Fall the nascent People-
of-Color Caucus formed and began meeting. For
information on this group devoted to investigating and

resolving many of the issues concerning CUNY’s
large non-white community, such as faculty and HEO
hiring practices, please contact Randy Punter
(718/262-2238).

Organizing the Undergrads

As our organizing efforts begin to pick up some
serious momentum, it becomes even more imperitive that
we extend the scope of our activities. The time has come
that we begin actively educating and organizing the massive
CUNY undergraduate community (students and their
families numbering in the hundreds of thousands) about the
adjunct issues which directly concern their education. And
it is time we engage the support of this community for our
concems and activities. We need to do this for a number of

Continued on next page


Organizing the Undergrads cont’d
reasons. First, we want to avoid any future conflicts should
we opt to engage in job actions. Second, the critical mass
achieved by such an organization would give us all
(undergrads, grads, and adjuncts) considerably more
leverage in negotiating our demands. Third, it would create
an atmosphere supportive of activism.

The CAU is beginning to contact undergraduate
student leaders, student newspapers, and activist
organizations at the campuses in an effort to commence this
campaign. We encourage adjuncts on the campuses to do
the same. And to spread the word. In class, where
appropriate. Everywhere else, whenever possible. Talk to
the students, tell them what’s going on, and explain how
what effects us effects them. Ultimately, they'll listen. If
they listen, we all win.

Come to the Next Meeting of
NY Adjun nite!
Friday, Feb. 20th 3pm Rm. 400

CUNY Graduate Center
25 W 43rd Street .

Letter to the Editor
[edited to fit alloted space]

To the Editor:

I feel strongly that the issue of requiring adjuncts to
attend meetings (at least 3.a semester in the case of one
community college ESL dept.) and implying that they
should attend 1 or 2 others (without pay) as well as
participate with vocabulary lists, written questions for
meetings, etc. needs to be addressed. There has been an
attitude taken by some that if a workshop isn’t taken (even
if there is payment) it will be frowned upon and may hurt
you in regard to future employment at that branch of
CUNY, especially if the workshop is given by the
coordinator. This probably exists elsewhere and is done to
intimidate adjuncts into assisting course leaders or
coordinators in getting promotions or tenure. No adjunct
should feel he or she must do extra work, beyond teaching,
and perhaps attending one necessary meeting, to keep
employment. -Name and campus withheld.

Adjunct Forum & Letters to the Editor

The “Adjunct Forum” is dedicated to the public debate of issues
conceming the CUNY adjunct. Letters to the editor may cover any subject
germane to CUNY adjuncts. All letters must be typewritten, signed, and
between 100-250 words. Letters may be edited to fit the allotted space.
Please send in your response to the following question for inclusion in an
upcoming issue: What unpaid non-teaching demands have
been made on your time, such as meetings, workshops,
and committee work? And what are your feelings about
these demands?

SSS SS SS SSS SS SSS SSS SS SSS SS SSS SS SSS SSS Ses

Conference Alert! The 2nd Annual National
Congress of Part-time, Adjunct, Graduate Assistant,
and Non-tenure Track Faculty Conference will take

place on April 3 & 4 at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Stay tuned for details. Or contact Vinny Tirelli for
further info (212/642-2143).

CUNY Adjuncts Unite! Contacts

Baruch Sylvia Rackow 212-387-1830
BMCC Shirley Rausher 212-721-0099
Bronx CC Ingrid Hughes 212-254-0635
Brooklyn Alex Vitale 212-642-2851
CCNY Rob Wallace 212-650-8179
CSI Harry Cason 212-838-1374
Hostos Anna Lopez 212-427-3874
Hunter Mark Halling 212-254-7997
Hunter Soc. Susanna Jones 718-243-0660
John Jay Michael Seitz 212-229-9180

Kingsborough CC _ Jerry Karol 718-330-0916

LaGuardia Costas Panayotakis 718-852-2069
Lehman Kyle Cuordileone 212-491-2653
Medgar Evars contact needed

NYC Tech. Wendy Scribner 212-982-0097
Queens Eric Marshall 212-642-2143
Queensborough CC contact needed

York MikeVozick 212-874-7650

Adjunct Alert On File--Reminder & Update

If you are not receiving your copy of Adjunct Alert in
your campus mailbox please notify your CAU! campus
contact person, or the editors directly. In case you have
missed an issue, here is an index of past articles:

Sept. 1997: CUNY Adjuncts Unite Formed
Pay for Office Hours
Why to Join the Union
Adjunct Pay Delay
Oct. 1997: Adjunct Pay Delay Follow-up
Office Hours/Time Sheet Campaign
Agency Shop for Adjunct Faculty
Contract Negotiations/Demands
Nov. 1997: Adjuncts and Social Security Tax
Union Voting Privileges for PSC VP’s
City-wide Adjunct Organizing
Adjunct Handbook in Preparation
Dec. 1997: Office Hours Campaign Update
GTF Information
Adjunct Forum Response/A gency Fee
Upcoming: PSC Health Benefits/Welfare Fund Info
Demonstration Report
Research Foundation & the union
and much more!
For back issues, please contact the CAU at 212/642-2143.
Or check our web site at www.soc.qce.edu/adjunct.

This issue of CUNY Adjunct Alert was produced by Eric Marshall, Daniel Mozes, Vinny Tirelli, and Alex Vitale. Articles and letters to the editor should be
submitted via inter-college mail to CUNY Adjunct Alert, c/o Doctoral Students’ Council, CUNY Graduate Center.