From Hunter adjunct and union activist Sándor John
April 2020 union elections:
We need a radical labor
voice
in the PSC
Delegate Assembly
Dear fellow Hunter PSC member: I’m running as an independent
candidate for Delegate to the PSC’s Delegate Assembly, which is the union’s principal
governing body. I am an adjunct associate professor in Hunter’s History Department,
and have taught at CUNY for 16 years. From 2008 to 2014, I served as an independent
delegate and member of the Hunter union chapter executive committee. In 2008, I
helped found CUNY Contingents Unite as a voice within the union for adjuncts
and others in CUNY’s contingent majority. I think we need a radical labor voice
in the Delegate Assembly. This requires well-informed, consistent and serious
application of the principles of militant labor solidarity that built the union
movement in the first place.
When we say “An injury to one is
an injury to all,” that means using labor’s power to put those principles into
practice. Solidarity is key. To win, our struggles must be part of the broader
fight for the rights and needs of all the workers and oppressed, in NYC and beyond.
The issue of adjunct pay and
adjunct poverty continues to underscore that point. In 2014, I put forward the
motion for a minimum adjunct starting pay of $7,000 – together with a seniority system and real job security
– that, when passed by the international
Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, sparked the fight for this demand at
CUNY. Yet far from “transformative,” as the union’s New Caucus leadership
claimed, the contract leaves us far behind even that modest goal. Meanwhile, rents
keep going up, and the MLA’s minimum standard has risen to $11,100 per course.
Bowing down to the bosses’ rules won’t cut it – and unserious
play-acting is no alternative. I’ve
fought to unite tenured/tenure-track
and adjunct faculty, grad students, TAs, HEOs, CLTs and others in our union, together
with the cafeteria, clerical, janitorial and maintenance workers who keep the
university going. Together with CUNY’s huge
student body, their working-class and immigrant families, and powerful sectors
of NYC labor, we can take on and defeat the two-tier, divide-and-conquer labor
system. It’s a pressure cooker, as we’re seeing with the ongoing fight against
poverty pay at the University
of California
Here at Hunter, I’ve built
solidarity campaigns with the cafeteria, custodial and maintenance workers; brought
out support for the inspiring organizing drives by immigrant workers at the Hot
and Crusty bakery near Hunter, B&H Photo and elsewhere; and worked with students
from the Internationalist Club in solidarity with the Mexican teachers strike, in
protest against the racist murders of Eric Garner, Akai Gurley and so many
others, and for mobilizing labor’s power against I.C.E. raids and deportations.
In 2013, I faced off against a Fox
News “ambush interview” that aimed to silence protest against militarization at
CUNY. I’ve been active in defending academic freedom and opposing efforts to whip
up campus censorship, from the White House down to local imitators of Joe
McCarthy and his “Are you now or have you ever been...?” A former phone worker,
I am now and have always been a hardcore unionist, and helped found Class
Struggle Education Workers, a left opposition tendency in NYC education unions.
We point out that chaining the working class and oppressed to the Democratic
Party paved the way for Trump; and as an actual socialist standing for a
workers government and an end to capitalist exploitation, racism and war, I think
it’s crucial to unchain the power of labor from its decades-long subjugation to
Democrats, Republicans, and all bosses’ parties and politicians. The working
class needs its own party built on a program of class struggle.
Today I
believe it is more crucial than ever to have a radical labor voice in the PSC Delegate
Assembly.
In solidarity,
Sándor John
Sándor John
March 7, 2020
For more information: s_an@msn.com Labor donated
Class Struggle Education Workers (CSEW) is part of the fight for a revitalization and transformation of the labor movement into an instrument for the emancipation of the working class and the oppressed. See the CSEW program here.