Special to Workers World
Higher education — colleges and post-secondary education — has been a target of right-wing, reactionary attacks for decades, but the Musk-Trump-MAGA grouping has brought a new, vicious intensity to this campaign.
The Department of Education has threatened schools with losing all federal funding if they have policies supporting diversity, equity and inclusion. The MAGA assault on DEI is intended to roll back civil rights and other efforts that address historic inequities.
Much of the research funds in science, technology and clinical work has been frozen. Research and publishing on cultural and gender issues have been actively suppressed.
The purpose of these budget cuts is to deliver trillions of dollars of tax breaks “to billionaires and wealthy corporations,” according to the Professional Staff Congress (PSC).
What is the PSC doing?
The PSC (American Federation of Teachers Local 2334) represents 30,000 faculty and professional staff at the City University of New York. CUNY is the most diverse university system in the United States: 76% of its students are people of color; 38% speak a native language other than English; 34% were born outside the U.S. mainland; 60% are the first member of their family in college; and 58% are women. (cuny.edu)
The PSC’s latest contract, which was approved by over 90% of the membership, took nearly two years of lobbying, bargaining and protests to negotiate. Under New York state law, it is illegal for the PSC to strike.
In a Feb. 28 email message to his membership, PSC President James Davis said, “To implement the gains that it [the contract] provides PSC members,” it will be necessary “to resist the agenda pushed by the Trump administration to deliver punitive cuts to higher education and working people.”
Davis raised the lawsuits and lobbying efforts of the national affiliates of the PSC — the American Association of University Professors, the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO — to temporarily block the implementation of these cuts. But “temporary means temporary.”
Davis called on members of the PSC to, “Join the PSC and dozens of allies on Saturday, March 15th, at 11 a.m. at Foley Square to say ‘No Cuts to Working People to Fund Tax Breaks for Billionaires and Corporations.’”
Endorsers of the March 15 protest include Service Employees Union (SEIU) 1199 United Healthcare Workers East; New York State Nurses Association; Communications Workers of America, District 1; the New York State Nurses Association; Public Employees Federation-SEIU 3280; and United Auto Workers Region 9A.
The letter from Davis contains a form for the membership to indicate whether they’re coming. It noted the creation of two working groups — one on immigration and the other on gender.
In the struggle to oppose the U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the PSC not only opposed them verbally with union resolutions in a number of venues, but they also built large contingents of members (and their students) that took part in street demonstrations. Now it’s time to demand again, “Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation!”