Author: SAJ

32BJ RALLY
to Support Security Officers at CUNY Campuses
Wednesday, June 8
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
3:30 to 5:30 pm

SEIU 32BJ is the union that represents the security officers at CUNY locations; more than 200 of these folks are facing the loss of their jobs this month.  From the folks I have spoken to around the Grad Center, it appears that management is hiring new, non-union security officers for cheaper to fill their places.  Many of the folks I regularly talk to have been upset about this a while; for them to call a rally is a major action.  I believe we really need to demonstrate our solidarity and support for these folks; many of them signed the petition for our four demands in October.  PLEASE, if you are not otherwise occupied, come to the Grad Center for a few hours on Wednesday.  If you absolutely cannot make it, please spread the word.

Friday, April 8th, 6:30 pm, room 5489:  Put on your thinking caps!
What are the long-term goals of the Adjunct Project?  How can we best work to end contingency?  What should our vision and action be in the next year to five?  How can we strategize for long-term interactions with union leadership and the state? What other movements are central to the achievement of our long-term goals?  How can we grow our movement and be part of a growing national and international movement for labor rights and social justice?

Come to this work session to offer feedback and perspectives on these and more relevant questions!  We’ll use brainstorming and break-out groups to address these issues and more!   This is only the beginning of long-term strategizing for the end of contingency!

THE AP NEWSLETTER

In this issue:
1. Involvement and Activism Calendar
2. Adjunct Project Workshop Series: Fighting Oppressions in the Heart of Academia
3. Long-term planning work session
4. Student Contingent at Anti-War Rally
5. AP Now on Twitter!

1.  Involvement and Activism Calendar: What’s next?

Friday, April 8th:
Adjunct Project long-term planning work session, 6:30 pm, The Graduate Center room 5489.  See below.

Saturday, April 9th:
Anti-War Rally, 11:00 am, Washington Square Park.  See below.

Wednesday, April 13th:
Adjunct Project’s Workshop Series: Fighting Oppressions in the Heart of Academia, 6:30 pm, The Graduate Center room 5414. See below!

2. Adjunct Project Workshop Series: Fighting Oppressions in the Heart of Academia
6:30 pm, The Graduate Center room 5414
The next event in our series of spring workshops!  How are racism, sexism, ableism, classism, homophobia, western imperialism, and other oppressions built up and maintained in the academy in general, and at CUNY in particular?  What cultural and institutional structures preserve the academy’s oppressive status?  How can we challenge and break down these structures?  And how can we use our location within academia to fight for social justice?  Panel and discussion.  Invite a friend!

3.  Adjunct Project long-term planning work session
Friday, April 8th, 6:30 pm, room 5489
What are the long-term goals of the Adjunct Project?  How can we best work to end contingency?  What should our vision and action be in the next year to five?  How can we strategize for long-term interactions with union leadership and the state? What other movements are central to the achievement of our long-term goals?  How can we grow our movement and be part of a growing national and international movement for labor rights and social justice?

Come to this work session to offer feedback and perspectives on these and more relevant questions!  We’ll use brainstorming and break-out groups to address these issues and more!   This is only the beginning of long-term strategizing for the end of contingency!

4.  Student Contingent at Anti-War Rally
The Anti-War movement is having its first big mobilization in years. It is time we say no to wars of aggression across the globe and tell the US government to spend tax payer dollars on education, housing, health care and decent jobs instead. A coalition of NYU student groups are working with student groups from across the city in mobilizing students to attend the April 9th Anti-War Rally. Date: April 9th 2011 Time: Meet at 11am Place: Washington Square Park
RSVP on facebook here.
Download the fliers and posters here:  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/547364/Student-Contingent-JPG-large.jpg

5. AP now on Twitter!
Are you on Twitter?  Follow the @AdjunctProject!  Get 140 character or less updates on actions around the city, the state, and the world. Keep us posted with what you’re doing; we’ll retweet to share as much as possible!

The next general AP meeting, scheduled for Tuesday March 22nd, will be at 5:30 pm in Room 5414 at the Grad Center.

Please make a note of the new time, which was changed in order to maximize attendance.
The agenda may include:
1. Upcoming Events
2. Listserv Changes
3. Update on the AP Workshop Series
4. Day of Rage Rally/March
5.  PSC Delegate Assembly Meeting/Nationwide Strike and Contract Campaign Working Group Update
6. NYSHIP Forum (We have a date: April 27th!)
7. AP Meeting Process and Decision Making

A variety of important labor events are happening in the next few weeks!

Tuesday, 3/22
-Adjunct Project Meeting, now at 5:30 pm, The Graduate Center room 5414.  See below.
by: The Adjunct Project

Wednesday, 3/23
-Direct Action to Stop Austerity Budget, a huge march on Albany planned by the PSC, all day, Albany.  See below.
by: The Professional Staff Congress

Thursday, 3/24
-State of Emergency Protest: Day of Rage Against the Cuts, a student/labor/community rally against budget cuts, 5:00 pm, City Hall (March to Wall Street at 6:00 pm)
by: a number of awesome groups, see earlier announcement to this listserv

Friday, 3/25
-CUNY Contingents Unite meeting, 4:00 pm, The Graduate Center room 5414.
by: CCU
-The Impact of Popular Uprisings: Mid-East to Midwest, a roundtable featuring Ervand Abrahamian, Yoav Peled, Barbara Bowen and Kristofer Peterson-Overton at PSC-CUNY; 5:30 pm; PSC-CUNY Union Hall 61 Broadway, 16th floor.  Photo ID required
by: PSC

Wednesday, 3/30
-AP Workshop Series: “I’m Stickin’ to the Union!”: The PSC and the Contract Campaign, 6:30 pm, The Graduate Center room 5414
by: The Adjunct Project

Thursday 3/31
-PSC Delegate Assembly Meeting, 6:30 pm, more information TBA
-National Day of Action: Student Strikes and Walkout to Defend Public Education, all day, everywhere.  More details TBA.
by: A variety of groups around the country.  For more information and to assist in planning and organizing, see the New York Discussion board on the facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Call-for-a-Nationwide-General-Strike/150601308334693?sk=app_2373072738

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGED TIME!  The March AP Meeting will be held next week!  Come one, come all, bring a friend!  Food and drink will be provided.  The meeting will hopefully cover:

1. Upcoming Events
2. Listserv Changes
3. Update on the AP Workshop Series
4. Day of Rage Rally/March
5.  PSC Delegate Assembly Meeting/Nationwide Strike and Contract Campaign Working Group Update
6. NYSHIP Forum (We have a date: April 27th!)
7. AP Meeting Process and Decision Making

At the end of February, President Kelly met with the AP Co-Coordinators to discuss the dire state of CUNY’s Budget and the implications for The Graduate Center.  You deserve to know this information as well; make yourself familiar with CUNY’s budget issues as a whole in order to help preserve quality and accessible education, at all levels. A summary of the information he presented follows.
-Over the past 3 years of cumulative cuts the CUNY budget has been reduced by $6.377 million.  (Don’t forget!  A decrease in public funding means an increase in privatization, with major consequences for academic freedom, job security, standard of living, and access and justice for educators and students!)
-So far most of those cuts have been, in Kelly’s words “made invisible” at the Grad Center: by using reserves, buying forward in supplies etc., and in “personnel economies” around automating functions, weekend hours, etc.
-The New York fiscal year begins on April 01, and the CUNY Budget is again proposed to be cut across the board: $95 million dollars in total of preliminary and mid-year cuts to the ’11-’12 budget.
-Some (approximately the $11.9 million, the equivalent of the mid-year cuts) has been covered by the 5% spring tuition increase, which mostly goes to the state to fund shortfalls and not to the institutions that raise tuition.  This leaves a $83.2 million problem.
-A MAJOR WAY to deal with this problem is to ask for legislative relief, that is, to intervene, lobby etc. AT ALBANY against these budget cuts.  SEE BELOW FOR ACTION YOU CAN TAKE ON THIS ISSUE.
-President Kelly proposed that the other two ways to deal with these financial shortfalls are 1) to revisit “modest and regulated tuition increases going forward,” around 2%, of which CUNY would keep about half, and 2) to continue economies and cuts.  As you may have heard, there is already a suspension on filling most vacant positions at the Graduate Center.  This will, according to Kelly, “fall heavily on staff and on those who depend on staff to provide those services.”  Eventually this will come down to the programs.  How deep can we cut? Have we already hit the veins?

From the PSC’s website: “On Wednesday, March 23, the PSC will lead a peaceful, non-violent protest in Albany, during which some of us are prepared to risk arrest to stop an austerity budget from passing. I am writing to ask you to join us. All who want to participate in peaceful protest are welcome….There will be important support roles for those who choose not to risk arrest. Contact Rob Murray, Organizing Director, at rmurray@pscmail.org or (212) 354-1252 to sign up.”  For more information, see http://psc-cuny.org/get-involved/direct-action-stop-austerity-budget.  This is a great opportunity to take a direct lesson from Wisconsin: the time to take action is NOW!