Members of the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, AFT Local #2334 (PSC-CUNY), organized a picket line outside CUNY’s central offices located at 205 East 42nd Street in Manhattan on Tuesday, April 15.
PSC-CUNY members were demonstrating to push City University of New York (CUNY) management to give them some information about when they would see the backpay they are owed.
In December 2024, the union and the university agreed on a four-year contract, retroactive from March 2023 through November 2027. Union members ratified the agreement on January 13.
The new contract came with salary increases for 26,000 CUNY faculty members. “It’s 13.4% over four years across the board,” PSC-CUNY President James Davis explained. “That’s not that much of an outlier in terms of the public sector in this round. But yeah, we were happy with it … and 90% of our members ratified it. So, they clearly wanted to get their raises, too.”
But following the ratification, there was no communication from the CUNY administration about when PSC members would start to receive their retro pay or their ratification bonuses. “Because that’s the other thing,” added Davis, “There’s also a $3,000 ratification bonus for all the full-timers and a prorated ratification bonus for part-time employees. And we haven’t heard word one from our administration about when anybody’s going to get the bonus. So that’s got people really anxious and angry.”
PSC members hadn’t had an across-the-board raise since November 2022.
The Amsterdam News reached out to the office of CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez to ask if he wanted to speak about the back pay issue or knew when union members could expect to receive their backpay. We wanted to ask if there was some logistical reason for the delay.
A CUNY Spokesperson informed us that, “Thanks to close collaboration between the staff at CUNY and at the Office of State Comptroller, CUNY has established an implementation schedule and has communicated it to the PSC members.”
Now, the pay timetable for PSC-CUNY members will take the following form:
- May 15: $3,000 ratification bonus for eligible full-time employees paid by the state.
- May 23: $3,000 ratification bonus for eligible full-time employees paid by the city.
- July 24: Prorated ratification bonus for eligible part-time employees paid by the state.
- Aug. 1: Prorated ratification bonus for eligible part-time employees paid by the city.
- Aug. 7: Wage increases (retroactive to 2023) for all eligible employees paid by the state.
- Aug. 15: Wage increases (retroactive to 2023) for all eligible employees paid by the city.
- Sept. 4: On time new salary increases (from Sept. 1 on) for eligible employees paid by the state.
- Sept. 12: On time new salary increases (from Sept. 1 on) for eligible employees paid by the city.
“It’s outrageous that it took so long to get this implementation schedule,” was the response PSC-CUNY President James Davis gave when informed about the backpay timetable. “The credit goes to PSC members for moving CUNY management to complete the work needed to produce it. Union pressure on the central administration yielded results.
“PSC members are both relieved to know definitively the dates of the payments to which we are entitled and angry that they are so late. After ratifying the contract in January, it is frustrating to experience additional delays, and in the case of part-time employees’ ratification bonus, to see a much longer wait than the full-time employee ratification bonus.”