Vol. 32, No.4                                                      April 10, 2006

"LIES MY (DEAR) LEADER TOLD ME":
THE NEW CAUCUS AND THE WELFARE FUND

In recent days---culminating in a University-wide e-mail on Friday---CUNY faculty have been introduced to some remarkable "revisionist history," courtesy of New Caucus Welfare Fund guru, Steve London. In Steve's whacky world, Welfare Fund kickbacks are par for the course. Indeed, it's a sign of disrespect to our Dear Leader, PSC president Barbara Bowen, that any PSC member ever expected to receive a raise at all. Didn't we realize that we'd have to give back most of our below-inflation, NC-negotiated salary hikes to the Welfare Fund?

CUNY has hired lots of new faculty over the past six years, and so a cohort of our colleagues has lived only under the Dear Leader's dour regime. But does Steve really think that all the rest of us have lost our memories of pre-New Caucus contracts; or don't remember that we only started to hear talk of Welfare Fund "givebacks" when the extent of his incompetent management of the WF emerged?

But don't take our word for it.

We made clear that a critical difference was that our Welfare Fund covers prescription drugs and faces acute needs this year. These needs cannot be addressed, as in the past, simply by allocating a fraction of a percentage point in salary to the Welfare Fund---nor can we eviscerate our raises to maintain our benefits.
--Barbara Bowen, November 2004

Barbara (who used union dues to increase her salary by $33,879 annually) and Steve (who used union dues to increase his salary by $28,509 annually) don't have to worry about the financial effects of requiring CUNY faculty to give back all $800 of their $800 first-year raise; and 80% of their second-year raise.

But for the rest of us, a 100% year-one giveback and an 80% year-two giveback means that, under the Dear Leader's mandate, New Caucus negotiators will (to borrow a phrase) "eviscerate our raises to maintain our benefits." Claiming that such givebacks are the norm in CUNY contract negotiations insults our intelligence---and contradicts the Dear Leader's own promises of November 2004. But that's revisionism for you. Our Dear Leader always knows best!

THE PSC'S POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS:
WHAT ARE THEY HIDING---AND WHY?

We here at The Patriot Returns consider "FORM LM-2 LABOR ORGANIZATION ANNUAL REPORT" required reading for all interested in the PSC. With a leadership that has gone out of its way to conceal information from the membership (the extent of the Welfare Fund crisis; the Dear Leader's links to anti-Israel groups), this form provides the only ray of "sunlight" into the inner recesses of the PSC bunker on West 43rd Street.

We therefore were struck by the recently released table for the 2004-2005 LM-2 form:

Why did the Dear Leader conceal the recipients of more than $38,000 in our dues money? Given her past contribution patterns, which she did itemize on previous years' LM-2 forms, such concealment raises serious questions.

How much of this $38,000 went to USLAW/NYCLAW, a previous recipient of the Dear Leader's largesse, which she publicly denied was an "anti-Israel group" even as it advocated "the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land"; "an end to U.S. military and economic support for Israeli Apartheid"; and divesting "all labor investments in Israeli Apartheid"? Did any of this $38,000 find its way into the coffers of the NYCLAW-sponsored "Labor for Palestine," the organization of whose existence the Dear Leader denied knowledge even as PSC attendance at the group's last meeting was being polled?

Why the secrecy about this $38,000, Barbara? It's time to open the books, and let the sun shine in!

FREE SPEECH FOR ME, NOT FOR THEE
(AND WE CAN BREAK THE RULES, TOO!)

As we've mentioned before, The Patriot Returns is on the mailing list for both the CUNY Alliance and the New Caucus. It seems as if the NC has all but given up claiming that the new contract will be a good one. As for defending "Solidarity Steve's" performance at the Welfare Fund . . . that's too tall a task for even the Dear Leader.

Since the Dear Leader can't talk about her performance, the New Caucus has to come up with something to say---but a recent e-mail was peculiar even by their low standards. The claim: the First Amendment rights of Kingsborough professor Patrick Lloyd were violated because he refused to respect the college's prohibition on using the faculty list-serv to send political e-mails.

Now, the PSC has quite a record already regarding free speech. The Dear Leader closed down the on-line PSC forum after there was too much criticism over her 2001 plan to boost dues for full-time faculty. PSC executive committee member Susan ("Queen of Released Time") O'Malley has used her control of the Faculty Senate list-serv to boot off posters whose political views she didn't like. And in the last week, we've been forwarded e-mails that New Caucus supporters spoke to York College's IT team in a vain attempt to block The Patriot Returns from arriving in all York inboxes.

Yet even for a PSC that has shown no commitment to protecting free speech other than from those with whom it agrees, the recent NC attack e-mail is bizarre. We can only assume that this . . . novel . . . interpretation of the First Amendment came from the PSC's chief counselor-cum-convicted/suspended lawyer, Nathaniel Charny. But let's explore its implications a bit. There seem to be two explanations of the Dear Leader's conception of free speech:

1. Lloyd should have been able to break the rules because---well, because he supports the Dear Leader. Think of the Dear Leader as CUNY's "Big Sister." Speech of which she approves can be circulated on faculty list-servs; authors of speech she doesn't like must follow the rules.
   
   
2. The restrictions on using faculty list-servs to circulate political material represent, to use the NC's words, an assault on "the free exchange of ideas, open debate and democratic unionism." The Dear Leader has reigned for six years. But all CUNY campuses still have these (perfectly reasonable) restrictions. Could it be that, on free speech just as on everything else, the incompetent ideologues currently running the PSC can't accomplish anything?

So, Barbara, which explanation is correct: people you like get to break the rules; or you've been singularly ineffective in protecting free speech for CUNY profs? Send us an e-mail; we look forward to reading another Charny-esque interpretation of the Constitution.

Sharad Karkhanis, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus

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