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Unions gain members at 'research foundations'
March 2, 2006 From left, Mary Ann Carlese, Jenny Kim and Jay Klokker, all of the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY. NYSUT is making inroads in gaining new members from city and state university "research foundations." The State University and City University have "private" entities called "research foundations" where employees are denied SUNY and CUNY benefits and membership in staff unions (respectively, United University Professions and the Professional Staff Congress). So PSC and UUP have reached out to them as private members, with growing success. The PSC has gained the membership of the admissions group at Kingsborough Community College , which had been a separate foundation that PSC staffer Mary Ann Carlese called "a shadow organization." Research foundation employees on CUNY campuses have grown to 5,000, Carlese told a February meeting in Manhattan of private college members of New York State United Teachers. "In some cases, employees were doing bargaining unit work, including professors and one tenure track professor," said Carlese. Some research foundation employees were kept below 20 hours per week to avoid eligibility for health insurance. That information, plus the knowledge that CUNY and its research foundation had "a lot of intermingling funds," prompted PSC to "go on the attack," Carlese said. PSC has also won foundation elections at LaGuardia College and New York City Technical. In the dark "A lot of us were in the dark," said Jenny Kim, a CUNY research foundation employee and a new member of PSC, noting that most employees thought they were being hired by CUNY only to find out they did not get the same benefits. Mark Chaykin, director of field operations for NYSUT, said the statewide union and UUP are in a major petition campaign at research foundations at SUNY Stony Brook's Health Science Center and core campus. SUNY has research foundations set up at most of its 30 campuses. With the recent addition of Syracuse University adjuncts, private college membership in New York State United Teachers is approaching 5,000, according to Chaykin. "We are building density in the private sector," he said. — Liza Frenette |
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