CUNY ALLIANCE           

The CUNY ALLIANCE Wants to Save Our Union
The New Caucus has failed us in every way

Our Philosophy:

• Our Union should focus on the well being of its members — salary, benefits, working conditions and job security
  
  
• Equal benefits for retirees and active members
  
  
• An open books policy is essential to sound governance
  
  
• Union members should help guide union policy
  
  
• Probity, not profligacy: disciplined, responsible expenditure of union funds

Our experienced slate includes:

• Two current PSC Chapter Chairs
  
  
• Several former Chapter Chairs
  
  
• A founding member of the PSC
  
  
• Experienced negotiators, grievance officers, and others with years of commitment to the union
  
  
• Representatives from the entire spectrum of CUNY

Nine years of New Caucus failures have cost us dearly:

• The incumbents negotiated raises that failed to keep up with cost of living increases. Since 2002, our base salary increased 11.9% as the result of their negotiated contracts (covering the 2002-2007 contract, and the first year of the 2007-2010 contract), far short of the 19.5% cost of living increase over that period. That means we lost 7.5 % in real purchasing power in that time.
  
  
• They drove the Welfare Fund Reserve into near-nothingness. We were required to give back $31 million of retroactive pay in 2006 to save the Reserve. A typical member lost between $1000 and $2000 in retroactive pay, and some gave up as much as $2600.
  
  
• Under the incumbents, we suffer catastrophically degraded dental benefits and lost our free life insurance.

Tellingly, our sister unions achieved better contracts than we did under the incumbent reign:

• During the last 9 years, our sister unions District Council 37, the public school teacher’s (UFT), and the United University Professors (SUNY) negotiated salary increases far higher than the incumbents negotiated for us.
  
  
• If those unions reached better deals than the PSC in the same city, in the same tough economic times, and under the same hostile government administrations, the blame for our worse contracts rests solely on our opponents’ incompetence and mismanagement.

Our Plan:

• We will focus your funds and our efforts on union business to help restore your benefits. To better achieve that goal, we will end the union’s current focus on global political issues.
  
  
• We will devote our energy to tough and sustained negotiations, but will deny the university a contract until our need for better benefits and working conditions is met.
  
  
• We will post all financial records and minutes of meetings on the web. When tough choices have to be made, we will let your informed views guide our decisions.
  
  
• We will do justice to adjuncts, HEO’s and CLT’s. The University must acknowledge, by way of salaries, benefits and security, their essential roles in the work of the University.

End nine years of New Caucus Failures:

The 9-year record of New Caucus failures stands as record of their incompetence and mismanagement. The entrenched incumbents’ unrelenting focus on global politics is to the detriment of union business. We’ve paid the price for that distracted leadership for too long. The CUNY ALLIANCE is different. We focus on the bread and butter issues of members of the educational community.

Refocus our union on the issues that count

Help us clean house

Vote the CUNY ALLIANCE in April
Put OUR interests at the top of the union agenda

President: Fred Brodzinski            First V.P.: James Blake 

 Secretary: Thea Pignataro            Treasurer: Rina Yarmish

See the CUNY ALLIANCE profile in the March issue of the Clarion for information on all 27 PSC Executive Council candidates.

Or go to www.CUNYALLIANCE.org for more information.

To contact us via email write to: ca@cunyalliance.org
www.CUNYALLIANCE.ORG