Vol. 27, No.1                                                      December 06, 2005

NY, NU?

The climax that the krazy kontract kampaign has been building toward all year has finally come. Picketers are a marchin'; banners are a wavin'; slogans are a ringin'; and songs they are a singin'. "Which side are you on, brothers? Which side are you on?" The New Caucus is now involved in a showdown with a ruthless, union-busting administration, and radicalized faculty and students have taken to the streets. The PSC's pugnacious politics of confrontation have finally involved it in a strike!

The only problem with this otherwise striking scenario is the locale. "Bellowing" Barbara and her militant minions are marching, shouting and fighting the man not on the campuses of Queens College, Kingsborough, or CCNY, but at New York University. They are upset and outraged about President Sexton's refusal to recognize a teaching assistants' union, the Graduate Student Organizing Committee (United Auto Workers Local 2110); and his insistence that all TA's return to their classroom assignments, lest they lose their stipends. "The NYU fight is, in the most immediate sense, our fight too," the Dear Leader has declared. "Winning this fight today," she goes on, "is as important as the air traffic controllers strike was early in Reagan's first term." [Memo to Barbara: PATCO lost that strike, and was subsequently decertified.]

Here at The Patriot Returns we have no editorial or educational position regarding the present imbroglio down on Washington Square---although we wouldn't want to make book against John Sexton. Those of us who are familiar with psychotherapy might interpret Barbara's unhinged anger and raving self-righteousness in terms of displacement or wish fulfillment, but that would be beside the point. We are, however, quite perplexed by the apparently massive investment in time and resources that the PSC is making in this "job action"...sorry... in this strike.

From the cascade of e-mails, flyers and phone calls emanating from West 43rd Street, it seems that Bowen and the New Caucus have little else on their agenda than coming to the aid of the NYU TAs. On December 2nd, the Dear Leader addressed a strike rally [no need for a bullhorn when Barbara is on the podium]; Jim Perlstein, the Solidarity Committee's co-chair, has been working non-stop to place CUNY faculty and staff on the picket line each and every day; and the union's treasurer, John Hyland, went and got himself arrested in support of the GSOC on August 31 st. The PSC's very own "Big MAC," associate executive director Mary Ann Carlese, has been coordinating recent strike-related activities.

Nu? While Bowen and her comical cadres are, of course, free to express themselves in support of any cause they deem worthy, it seems to us that they should not be so free in using our dues money---especially when they have yet to negotiate a contract.

The hours of reassigned time and the sizeable supplemental salaries that they receive should be dedicated first and foremost to the needs of faculty and staff at CUNY. We find it very hard to believe that Barbara, Steve, Cecelia, John, Stanley, Jonathan, Susan, Marcia, Anne and all the rest of the merry militant crew can be marching around NYU while working 'round the clock to deliver the woefully overdue contract: at last count some 1,132 days overdue.

Further, we find it to be quite curious that full time PSC employees are being used in support of the GSOC, rather than attending to matters here at CUNY. Last time we checked, the United Auto Workers sure weren't hurting for money. So, why are our dues dollars underwriting them?

It seems to us that Barbara and the PSC have already picked a fight that they can't win with one university, and have made it up close and ugly with one chief administrator. Before she brings down the wrath of John Sexton, and alienates our colleagues at NYU, she might want to pause. Given the laughably low wage package that the Dear Leader agreed to in 2002, and the even sadder salaries that she soon may be trying to sell us, adjuncting has become an economic necessity for many of us here at CUNY.

Please, Barbara, don't ruin our chances for part time work at other institutions! We all don't enjoy the six figure incomes---with no teaching responsibilities, no less!---that you and the other PSC bosses do. For us, "intellectual labor" is more than a political slogan: it is what we have to do each and every day while you are a-huffing and a-puffing at the walls of NYU.

HEY, HEY! HO, HO! BELLOWIN' BARBARA'S GOT TO GO!

 HEY, HEY! HO, HO! THE PSC AIN'T PATCO!!

Sharad Karkhanis, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus

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