Join us for action on Thursday 1/25 to reverse the layoffs and resist austerity!

Instead of resisting CUNY’s unjustified demand for budget cuts, Queens College administration decided to lay off 26 full time Queens College faculty, just weeks before the semester! These sudden and cruel layoffs deeply hurt faculty’s livelihoods, and in some cases take away their healthcare benefits. Queen’s College administration’s brutal conduct affected hundreds of students and instructors, and dramatically cut course offerings at the college. You can read more about the layoffs below.

Join us on Thursday, January 25, to demand that Queens College reverse these outrageous layoffs! We have two actions planned:
At 9 AM, join us in the music building, to help us distribute flyers to get the word out to the Queens College community!
And at 12 PM join us in front of Kiely Hall, to protest the layoffs and the budget cuts that destroy our college.

Please email oded.nir@gmail.com with any questions.

Nov. 1 Chapter Meeting: Healthcare and a Resolution

Our next chapter meeting is Wednesday, November 1 from 12:15- 1:30 pm. Again, the meeting will be hybrid: in person in Powdermaker Hall 132 and online through Zoom by registering here. If you can make it in person, we’ll have pizza. 

The focus of the meeting will be healthcare. Dean Hubbard, Executive Director of the PSC, will visit our campus to answer all your questions about healthcare and to discuss some of the current and future issues we’re facing. He’ll explain things like how the union bargains for our healthcare through MLC, a coalition of city unions, the difference between the Welfare Fund and our other healthcare plans, adjunct benefits, and the latest fight over retiree healthcare. If you’d like, you can submit your questions ahead of time here.

We’ll also spend a short time at the end of the meeting discussing a resolution about free speech and the current crisis in Palestine proposed to the PSC Delegate Assembly (DA). You can find the resolution herePlease note this resolution is a proposed draft and has not been passed by the DA nor endorsed by the PSC principal officers. 

The Delegate Assembly consists of PSC members that represent you, PSC members. (Queens College faculty delegates are listed here. HEO and CLT delegates are listed here.) In 2021, after the last resolution about the conflict in Israel/ Palestine was passed by the DA, the principal officers—in consultation with the DA—decided to change the process for approving resolutions. Now every resolution must be introduced in one meeting, distributed to the membership for their feedback, and then voted on in the next meeting. The DA will vote on the attached resolution at the November 16 DA meeting. (I’ve provided links that can offer more background information for those who are interested.) 

That is why I’m emailing this resolution to you, asking you for feedback now, at the chapter meeting, or possibly at a future event. Queens College delegates would like to know what you think about this resolution before we vote at the next meeting. 

If you cannot attend the chapter meeting but would like to provide feedback about the resolution, you can do so here. You just have to answer one simple question! We are also considering holding a forum to have a longer discussion about the issues raised in the resolution.