The Union Moment
At the beginning of this academic year, the White House released a report titled “The State of Our Unions,” beginning with the following: “Organized labor appears to be having a moment. After decades of erosion in the private sector, U.S. workers are organizing at a pace not seen in many years.” The report goes on to cite recent unionization efforts at Starbucks, Amazon, and REI (we could add to this growing list companies like JetBlue, Home Depot, GEICO, and Kroger).
Unions are on the rise across the nation, with public support for organized labor in the U.S. at the highest levels in almost 60 years. Experts attribute this to a variety of factors, including low unemployment rates and a tight labor market that empowers workers, a pandemic pause that enabled a reassessment of working conditions and historically held assumptions about jobs, and some striking successes of labor in the service industry (often led—significantly–by younger, college-educated workers). The present administration in Washington has taken a number of initial steps to strengthen organized labor as well.
I’m pleased to report that our faculty union remains healthy as well, and is in fact getting stronger. Of the 13 new full-time hires this year, 12 have confirmed they are joining the WCCFT so far. I’m especially pleased to report that almost half of these were already members of the union as adjuncts at the College. Since the beginning of August, we have received approximately 25 new adjunct members via our online enrollment form. A number of major initiatives we identified when we first assumed leadership of the WCCFT are at or nearing completion, thanks to the truly outstanding efforts of our officers, Executive Committee, and Negotiating Team:
- Under the exemplary stewardship of Treasurer Doris Warmflash, we have presented and approved an annual budget that puts us solidly in the black, compared to an operating deficit when she first took over that role in 2021.
- Secretary Jennifer Gurahian invested enormous labor over the summer in compiling and analyzing data on our membership list and collective bargaining unit members, with a special focus on adjuncts.
- Vice President Deirdre Verne has been ferociously defending your rights as Grievance Chair, and working tirelessly with our dedicated NYSUT Labor Relations Specialist, Amanda Velazquez, to address workplace issues too numerous to list here, for members both full- and part-time.
- Joyce Cassidy has spearheaded a major push to revise our Constitution—an effort now three years in the making– which we plan to present for ratification in the coming weeks.
- Thanks to our Negotiating Team (Eric De Sena, Madalena Mansinho, Laura Milhaven and Sean Simpson, in addition to Deirdre, Amanda and myself), we appear to be nearing the end of our contract negotiations; we hope to present a proposed contract for ratification later this semester, with significant gains for all faculty and building on the 2% salary increase we negotiated in the 2019-20 MOA.
- Other members of our Executive Committee– Gwen Roundtree Evans, Robin Graff, Craig Padawer, Ellen Zendman, Joe Sgammato, and Richard Courage — have all contributed in countless and invaluable ways, both in our EC meetings and in their capacities as chairs of their respective union committees: reimbursing members for professional development expenses, providing scholarships to students, safeguarding the health and safety of our workplace, strengthening ties with the Faculty Senate, maintaining our website and generating this newsletter.
But much work remains to be done if we are to capitalize on this moment. Strong as our membership is among full-time faculty, part-time faculty are still sorely underrepresented in the WCCFT; we need to increase membership among adjuncts substantially if we are to remain healthy. NYSUT reports that contributions to VOTE-COPE, our political action arm, are down across the board, at all locals—and we need people in elected office who share our values and recognize the transformative power of public higher education. These are two areas I would like to see prioritized this year and going forward.
What can YOU do, now, today, at this very moment? If you haven’t yet signed up for union membership (and it’s not automatic!), please do so NOW—before you read that next email, or answer that voicemail—at http://www.sunywccft.org/membership-form/. While you’re there, click on the link for VOTE-COPE, and set up a recurring payroll deduction for $5 per paycheck—the cost of a fancy coffee—to help elect political leaders who support us and our students (http://www.sunywccft.org/2021/10/vote-cope/) . If you’re already a union member, find ONE adjunct you know and ask them to do the same. It literally takes just one moment of your time.
Carpe momentum. Seize that moment!
