Nine years of New Caucus rule is enough. Barbara Bowen's contracts have left us with salaries that have failed to keep pace with inflation. New Caucus mismanagement of the Welfare Fund precipitously weakened dental coverage, eroded the prescription drug benefit, and even then required us to “give back” some of the paltry salary hikes that the Bowen team obtained. And the New Caucus leadership has all but ignored the full-time faculty's workload burden, an issue that barely made it to the bargaining table in the last two rounds of contract talks.

If you listen to their campaign rhetoric, the incumbent union management deserves no blame for these failures. Instead, Barbara Bowen and her team cite ill-defined political forces, or the CUNY administration, or the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But consider that our sister unions representing New York City public school teachers or SUNY professors have operated in the very same political, administrative, and foreign policy environment—and yet have consistently negotiated contracts with higher raises and better benefits than those obtained by Barbara Bowen's New Caucus for CUNY faculty and staff.

These disparate results suggest that beyond the difficulties in sustaining public support for education in the 21st century, Barbara Bowen's agenda and style have made the New Caucus particularly ineffective. Perhaps it's the Bowen team's obsession with global politics—from Colombia to Peru to the Middle East—at the expense of tending to the concerns of faculty and staff. Perhaps it's the confrontation-first tactics, such as picketing outside the Chancellor's residence, that have alienated management for no practical purpose. Or perhaps it's the relentless effort to add non-academic workers to the union rolls, thereby diminishing the influence of faculty and staff in union decision-making.

The CUNY ALLIANCE believes that we need a new approach. We need a PSC where the leadership devotes all its time and effort to obtaining better salaries, improved benefits, and a reduced workload. We need a PSC that focuses on paycheck justice, not the distractions of global politics.

Our platform includes calls for additional salary steps at the top of the scale; full funding of the Welfare Fund by the city, not from members' back pay or dues; fiscal transparency in union spending, including the Welfare Fund; and eliminating double dues payments. You can see the entire document here: http://www.cunyalliance.org.

Sometimes, implementing this vision will require standing up to management—as in the battle to preserve faculty control over the PSC-CUNY Research Grants, an issue that Barbara Bowen's New Caucus overlooked until the CUNY ALLIANCE forcefully pointed out the unjustness of the administration's effort. At other times, we will recognize that hard bargaining with management, rather than Barbara Bowen's childish antics, is the responsible approach for a union that represents CUNY's faculty and staff. And at all times, implementing this vision will require a union leadership that doesn't alienate needed political allies in Albany and Washington by pursuing a global agenda wholly unrelated to the PSC's core needs.

After nine long years, it's time for a change at the PSC. Have the courage to change the paradigm, and establish paycheck justice as the PSC's central mission. Vote CUNY ALLIANCE.

Dr. Frederick Brodzinski
Candidate for President
CUNY ALLIANCE