After several (long) years without a contract, Professional Staff Congress (PSC)/CUNY has reached a tentative agreement with the powers that be at CUNY. The contract, which still remains to approved by both the PSC rank and file and the CUNY Board of Trustees, includes several important provisions which will affect GC students adjuncting at the colleges. The agreement also provides some insight into the general trajectory that CUNY is likely to take if the current labor climate remains unchanged.

In her April 28 communique announcing the deal, PSC president (and lead negotiator) Barbara Bowen characterized the final contract as a pragmatic victory. “The PSC bargaining team believes that we negotiated the best settlement possible within a hostile political environment that we have not yet succeeded in changing. This is a principled, imaginative agreement that maximizes the available funds for CUNY faculty and staff,” she said.

The contract includes modest salary increases, increased pay for sabbaticals, and increased benefits (including dental) for full-time faculty and staff, as well as the following provisions for part-time/adjunct faculty:

Pay increases. Currently, CUNY adjuncts receive $2,843 per three-credit course taught. If the contract is approved, this would increase to $3,084 (retroactively to May 1, 2006) and, on September 19, 2007, it would increase further to $3,113.

The creation of a new $500,000 fund for professional development grants for adjuncts. This includes an Adjunct Professional Development Fund, with a $3,000 maximum grant.

The contract would establish 100 new full-time lecturer positions “for which only experienced CUNY adjuncts would be eligible to apply.” As Bowen’s communique noted, “Nationally, this will make our contract one of the few in higher education that creates new full-time positions and goes against the grain of increasing contingent labor.” Pay for this position, the PSC told THE ADVOCATE, would be at the fulltime lecturer rate.

Paid sick days for non-teaching adjuncts and adjunct CLTs.

Ability for adjuncts to claim back pay from the beginning of the semester in case of underpayment.

Adjunct access to college e-mail and voicemail and listings in college faculty directories.

Bowen seems to recognize that, for adjuncts, this contract is picking meat from already ravaged bones – not much of a victory at all. Bowen said, “There is still a long way to go before CUNY offers anything like parity to the thousands of part-timers whose underpaid labor has kept the university afloat as funds were being slashed. CUNY’s abusive reliance on part-time labor hurts all of us; it’s clear that we will need an even greater level of mobilization in future contracts to break them of this bad-employer habit.”

In evaluating the contract, many have pointed to the fact that, despite a strong show of support and solidarity at rallies and meetings, the so-called Taylor Laws (which prohibit state employees from striking) were successful in reducing the PSC’s leverage. CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein’s repeated threat of penalties for such job actions, which included steep fines and even the possibility of reconsidering tenure, was said to have a chilling effect on the rank and file.

Although Bowen seems satisfied with what her negotiating team accomplished, she also understands that broader structural questions must now move front and center if real gains are to be made. Securing CUNY’s future as an institution that respects both its full and part time employees, she notes, lays not necessarily in the negotiation of contracts such as this, but in changing the environment in which bargaining takes place.

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At the March 15 GC Community Meeting, billed as an open forum on recurring computing problems, Information Resources’ annum horribilis devolved into a GC-style theatrum absurdum.

President Kelly opened with some optimistic remarks about the budget process in Albany (CUNY, it appears, may make it out of this cycle without further cuts), and then promptly turned the forum over to the Vice President for Information Technology and External Programs, Stephen Brier. Kelly joined the audience while Brier fielded questions solo from confused and sometimes dismayed faculty, staff and students. A noticeably empty chair sat next to Brier, by the way, possibly intended for Kelly, or maybe Gloria M. Barlow, Executive Director of Information Resources. Ms. Barlow sat out of the spotlight a few feet away, which seemed a bit unfair. IR reform: too hot to handle?

Brier asked that the event not focus on expressing dismay – “everybody knows there are problems” – but on proposing real solutions. These remarks, reiterated at several points, seemed to suggest that IR was expecting the GC community to offer technical advice about a complex network problem, which seemed odd. Brier asked the community to tell him their priorities, including which features they valued more than others to help IR make informed changes. The conversation, however, kept steering back to the network.

Brier explained that IR did not know “exactly what caused the U:\ drive to go down” earlier this semester and announced a commitment to replace “80-plus” outdated network Cisco brand switches throughout the building. These switches, according to Brier, are the routers through which all information is processed in the building, and how it connects to the outside world.

Since the meeting, Brier has told THE ADVOCATE that funding for this project has been finalized. The first phase of the transition is slated to begin at the end of the fiscal year in June and continue into the next fiscal year, with the (albeit seemingly optimistic) goal of completion before the Fall 2006 semester commences. Students, staff and faculty should be aware, however, each time a switch is replaced, the network will go down (for those of you out there keeping score, that’s 80+ “downs”). Brier, however, says he is committed to minimizing the impact of this process on the GC community.

Major structural questions notwithstanding, here’s a run-down of other main points from the meeting:

1. Students should not (and should not reasonably expect to be able to) trust their U:\ drives. Brier nostalgically recalled his own graduate school days, when he and his colleagues lived in dorm rooms with back-up floppy discs strewn about wildly. They knew better than to save their important work “in one place.” Brier’s salve? GC students “need to be educated about the dangers” of relying on the U:/ drive. Moreover, DSC funds were used to provide flash drives to all students to alleviate this very purpose. Students should pick up flash drives from APOs immediately and back up their dissertations.

2. Brier noted that the GC email system has only been down one day since June. Reinforced at one point by Kelly, he noted that this record is above average for a network of this size. At several points Brier pleaded with the community to come back to GC email and “give it a chance.”

3. Unconvinced, DSC Media Board Chair David Golland asked Brier to allow GC students to forward their GC accounts to their everyday (and, he insinuated, more trustworthy) email accounts, such as Yahoo! and Gmail. Brier explained that the Microsoft platform that the GC currently uses does not allow for this and that deploying third-party forwarding software would nullify the GC’s service contract with Microsoft.

4. Golland announced that DSC has now purchased non-GC web space because the GC FTP system was extremely unstable and that this problem was forcing the DSC webmaster to spend several extra hours each week duplicating prior work. This is the latest example of similar such moves: both the DSC and THE ADVOCATE moved to Gmail accounts this year for similar reasons.

5. Happily, a new search engine – powered by Google – has been activated on the home page of the GC web site. This should increase the usefulness of the (previously useless) GC web site and enable students to find out about events and other important information.

6. Wireless technologies are also in the works. As a preliminary steps, a survey was conducted and bids are currently being solicited. As the GC is a landmark building, Brier and Co. may have to jump through a few legal hoops here. But, barring unforeseen problems, wireless technology – at least in the library area and 8th floor cafeteria – is slated for the Fall 2006 semester. These initial locations were chosen via the online survey in which 400 of the GC’s 4,000 students participated.

7. GC students are now entitled to free anti-virus software and update subscription for their personal computers. Because of a special deal worked out with Symantec, all CUNY students and faculty are entitled to two free downloads of Symantec Anti-Virus (visit http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/icit/software for details).

8. Gloria Barlow (with a “huzzah” from Brier) said that IR needs to do a better job publicizing offerings and communicating with the GC community. Currently, email and web postings are their preferred method, which is one reason why they are encouraging students and faculty to “come on home” to GC mail. David Golland told THE ADVOCATE that “transparency is important from senior administrators and elected committees. What we need from the IR staff is not transparency, but efficiency.”

The meeting revealed that there are still major unresolved problems with regard to the future of information technology at the GC, though it is certainly good news that the network issues will begin to be addressed this summer. Still, it is clear that while the IR staff is concerned with addressing a range of problems and expanding the available offerings, it has yet to devise a solution to the major structural problem: the instability and unreliability of the network itself. According to Brier, while replacing the switches is an important step in the right direction, there are still additional Rumsfeldian unknowns regarding instability. For his part, Brier told THE ADVOCATE that he’s “feeling that there are areas of the network that are extremely stable” and that IR is “working to make the network more functional and simpler in the way they it is configured.” (Brier alluded to something else that many have long suspected: the incompetence of the former IR regime of James Haggard continues to be felt.)

But as some in attendance at the meeting pointed out, wireless networks, search engines, Virtual Private Networks and other features are useless if the network is down. There is little point in polishing new bells and whistles so long as the sleigh itself is broken.

The sleigh is broken now, though the community will have to see how IR’s summer plans play out. Kelly joked that some have suggested to him that Community Meetings be renamed “keggers.” If the next one addresses questions of information technology, this seems like a smart move.

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Sadly, though not unpredictably, the GC Bar has closed. On March 17, Vice President of Student Affairs Matthew Schoengood sounded the death knell via an email: “Although we had hoped to provide this service on a trial basis through the end of Spring 2006 semester, it became apparent that this was not an economically feasible venture.” No further details were provided.

For the record, this reporter enjoyed the bar very much. Though its life was short (a brief 22 days – oh, it never had a chance!), the conversations were lively and the beer delicious and reasonably priced. This reasonableness, of course, is no doubt the reason why the bar is no more. Reasonable=affordable=bad for Restaurant Associates’ coffers.

Sure, the hours were terrible (most people start drinking at 9), and the aesthetic was, well, boring corporate blarg. But still, it was nice to know that the GC community had a place to gather on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On one occasion, important DSC-related gossip was exchanged, and I felt warmly “in the know.” On another occasion, I discussed Milton Friedman with a colleague. I understood the world better, and enjoyed a Heineken Dark.

My feeling? There is no way to have both an “economically feasible venture” in this building and services appropriate to the needs of students receiving a public education – so long as the GC outsources food services to the same union-busting conglomerate that services Goldman Sachs, the Pierpont Morgan Library and Nasdaq Marketsite. CUNY and Restaurant Associates are – or at least should be – oil and water.

Though Schoengood hopes “to encourage other types of community gatherings in the future,” the bar experiment calls into question whether this is really possible. The GC bar, like all efforts subject to neo-liberal logics, is a victim not of student apathy, but the political-economic constraints of the Restaurant Associates business model. This model is antithetical to the very notion of a vibrant GC community.

RIP GC Bar. Is RA next?

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Beginning February 23, at 5pm the GC Foundation Lounge, next to the 365 Express, will magically morph into a full service bar, selling alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and “light snacks.”

The bar will be open from 5-9 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the spring semester and, if business is good, may continue in the fall as well.

For better or worse, the Bar will be operated by Restaurant Associates, the food service conglomerate that has exclusive rights to catering in the building.

According to Paul McBreen, a DSC alternate rep involved in the process, “these will not be bargain-basement prices but the goal is to make it cheaper than bars in the neighborhood. No one is looking to make a huge profit; the goal now is to provide a sense of community in a relaxed atmosphere for students, faculty, staff, and foundation members.”

Specific prices, according to McBreen, are still being discussed; so is entertainment, including the possibility of having GC students perform in the Lounge.

The bar plan has been floating around DSC for several years, and the current program was a collective effort of DSC, the administration and Restaurant Associates. Those with long memories, however, will recall that a similar plan was implemented a few years back in the 365 Express, but was aborted due to a lack of student interest and sustained cooperation between students and the administration on the effort.

To make this program succeed, DSC is hoping that programs with events on Tuesdays and Thursdays will consider decamping to the Foundation Lounge Bar, and that faculty and students alike will consider coming by after their classes to (as President Kelly put it) “unwind.” Whether winding down or up, though, all GC students should come on down, have a cold one and give this new initiative some life.

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