If you have difficulty reading the newsletter, please go to www.patriotreturns.com to see the latest release.
THE PATRIOT RETURNS |
Vol. 27, No.2 December 19, 2005
THE PSC LOSES OVER 2,000 MEMBERS IN LESS THAN ONE MONTH! A NEW VANISHING ACT OPENS ON WEST 43RD STREET !!
In the course of covering the comedy of errors known as the krazy kontract kampaign, we here at The Patriot Returns have happened upon some very strange stories. First, there was the question of who hired Nathaniel Charny to be the union's in-house jailhouse lawyer. Then there was Barbara Bowen's attempt at blotting out the New York Sun in the name of free speech. Of late there has been the spectacle of the New Caucus going out on strike against a university where they are not employed. And now, we've come across another odd one. Somehow and somewhere, the PSC's Executive Committee apparently has lost over 2,000 of its members in only a few short days! To whit: on November 4th the Chronicle of Higher Education ran a PSC ad that demanded a new contract; on the next day, the Village Voice ran the same piece. Included in it was the following statement: "the Professional Staff Congress represents 20,000 faculty and professional staff at the City University of New York..." This figure of 20,000 is the one that the New Caucus has conjured with since 2002, and readers might well assume that it was accurate. But on November 28th, the PSC filed a "Labor Organization Annual Report" with the United States Department of Labor. In it, the union reported 14,932 members: 7,833 full-time faculty and staff; 4,904 part-timers; and 2,195 retirees. To these were added 2,965 agency fee payers, tallying up to a bargaining unit of 17,897. We will leave aside for the moment whether the Dear Leader actually "represents" the nearly 3,000 faculty and staff AFPs who have done everything legally possible to distance themselves from the PSC. These membership and AFP figures are for 2004-05, and are in keeping with those for 2003-04 (14,725) and 2002-03 (14,407). But 20,000? That number is nowhere to be found. The required federal forms, signed by Barbara Bowen and John Hyland, were "true, correct and complete" under "penalty of perjury and other applicable penalties of the law." Since the PSC's Director of Legal Affairs, Nathaniel Charny, knows quite a bit about false statements and their consequences, we don't suppose that the numbers reported to the Department of Labor were anything but accurate. Yet if so, how to account for the difference between 20,000 on November 4th and 17,897 on November 28th? Where did the extra 2,103 come from? Or where did they go? Were they made up? Or are they missing? As skeptical as The Patriot Returns has been in the past about Barbara Bowen's willingness to be candid with the union, the university and the public at large, we simply can't believe that she would deliberately inflate the size of the membership. Our expert in such matters, the Giant Inflatable Rat, concurs. Why would she add to the charges that she has played fast and loose with the facts about the contract negotiations and the Welfare Fund? Why would she create even more concern about her credibility? We prefer, instead, to presume that the extra members have been misplaced. With all the hustle and bustle about rallies, referenda, and 'round the clock negotiations, we would not be at all surprised if Barbara, Steve, Cecelia and John are exhausted. The latter two, the PSC's secretary and treasurer, are rumored to be stepping down. (None too soon in Cecilia's case: several witnesses saw her shouting at CUNY Honors College students who opposed her opinion at a recent City Council hearing.) And as we reported in the last number of The Patriot Returns, the union's salaried staff seems to be working overtime for the teaching assistants at NYU. Little wonder, then, that some 2,103 members have been lost in the shuffle. In order to rectify this problem, and to set the record right for future deliberation, we offer the following suggestions:
As a token of our good will, we at The Patriot Returns are ready to be of help. We are prepared to supervise an online letter writing campaign on behalf of union members and agency fee payers alike. If you will send an e-mail with your name and university address (or home address for retirees) to: HereIamBarbara@patriotreturns.com we will forward this information to the PSC's offices. In addition, we will be making wristbands featuring the names of the misplaced available for a nominal charge (details forthcoming). Plans for a "Bringing Them All Back Home" benefit concert are also being considered. Working together, we can solve this mystery, and locate our more than 2,000 colleagues missing in action across CUNY.
BELLES WERE RINGING On Monday, December 5th, our editor-in-chief had the privilege of attending the twenty-sixth annual awards ceremony for the Belle Zeller Scholarships. The event, held at New York City Technical College and hosted by President Russell Hotzler, honored the achievements of CUNY's brightest and best. The well-attired winners and their guests enjoyed an excellent meal prepared and served by CityTech students. Shirley Beheshti, chair of the Trustees Committee, did a most admirable job in arranging the affair. We at The Patriot congratulate this year's Belle Zeller scholars. Missing from the proceedings, to the delight and relief of all, was President Barbara Bowen. Our readers will recall that the Dear Leader unceremoniously withdrew the PSC's support for the Belle Zeller Scholarships in March, and has been adamant that the Fund's trustees bend to her will ever since. Yet the success of the recent scholarship competition suggests that the trustees can manage quite well without the Dear Leader's monomaniacal machinations. Perhaps there is a lesson for all of us herein. If the Belle Zeller Trust Fund is better off without Barbara, wouldn't the rest of us be?
THE RUMOR COLUMN From what our informants hear in the eerie aeries of 25 West 43rd Street, those in charge of the krazy kontract kampaign are doing their damndest to keep us all in the dark about the "tentative framework for a settlement" that was reached with the university in early December. Why? Rumor has it that the terms of the contract are so terrible that Barbara fears the wrath of the membership and a revolt in the ranks of the New Caucus. The woeful words can come in January, when everyone is off-campus. "There is no excuse for its taking this long," the Dear Leader tells us. We most heartily agree! In the meantime, Barbara has been acting out her strike fantasies whenever and wherever she can find an audience. In early December, she was on the picket lines at NYU, carrying her signature "red" PSC posters. Since mid-month, she's been supporting the TWU, and standing aside her old buddy Roger Toussaint. Both Barb and Roge have been vocal critics of Taylor Law, and have insisted that the "right to organize" means the "right to strike." Now that the TWU has announced a "job action" against the Triboro and Jamaica bus lines, and has threatened to take on the entire MTA, Roger may get his chance to challenge the Taylor Law. In the event that he does, we wonder if Battlin' Barbara will try to shut down CUNY in sympathy with what she describes as the transport workers' "struggle." She's already asked Chancellor Goldstein to close the university on Friday the 16th "to ensure the safety of our members"---whatever that meant. Perhaps Barbara had the missing 2,103 in mind. Were President Toussaint to be sent off to Rikers Island in the course of an illegal strike, we wonder if President Bowen would develop a case of penal envy.
Sharad Karkhanis, Ph.D. Forthcoming issues of The Patriot may be accessed at http://www.patriotreturns.com/. |
