The AP Newsletter
March 18, 2011

In this issue:
1. Upcoming Events
2. The AP Meeting: 3/22/11 at 5:30 pm in 5414
3. President Kelly’s Budget Update
4. PSC’s Direct Action to Stop Austerity Budget

Attached:
1. Direct Action to Stop Austerity Budget Flyer

1.  Upcoming Events

A variety of important labor events are happening in the next few weeks!

Tuesday, 3/22
-Adjunct Project Meeting, now at 5:30 pm, The Graduate Center room 5414.  See below.
by: The Adjunct Project

Wednesday, 3/23
-Direct Action to Stop Austerity Budget, a huge march on Albany planned by the PSC, all day, Albany.  See below.
by: The Professional Staff Congress

Thursday, 3/24
-State of Emergency Protest: Day of Rage Against the Cuts, a student/labor/community rally against budget cuts, 5:00 pm, City Hall (March to Wall Street at 6:00 pm)
by: a number of awesome groups, see earlier announcement to this listserv

Friday, 3/25
-CUNY Contingents Unite meeting, 4:00 pm, The Graduate Center room 5414.
by: CCU
-The Impact of Popular Uprisings: Mid-East to Midwest, a roundtable featuring Ervand Abrahamian, Yoav Peled, Barbara Bowen and Kristofer Peterson-Overton at PSC-CUNY; 5:30 pm; PSC-CUNY Union Hall 61 Broadway, 16th floor.  Photo ID required
by: PSC

Wednesday, 3/30
-AP Workshop Series: “I’m Stickin’ to the Union!”: The PSC and the Contract Campaign, 6:30 pm, The Graduate Center room 5414
by: The Adjunct Project

Thursday 3/31
-PSC Delegate Assembly Meeting, 6:30 pm, more information TBA
-National Day of Action: Student Strikes and Walkout to Defend Public Education, all day, everywhere.  More details TBA.
by: A variety of groups around the country.  For more information and to assist in planning and organizing, see the New York Discussion board on the facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Call-for-a-Nationwide-General-Strike/150601308334693?sk=app_2373072738

2. The AP Meeting: Tuesday, 3/22/11, 5:30 pm, The Graduate Center 5414

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGED TIME!  The March AP Meeting will be held next week!  Come one, come all, bring a friend!  Food and drink will be provided.  The meeting will hopefully cover:

1. Upcoming Events
2. Listserv Changes
3. Update on the AP Workshop Series
4. Day of Rage Rally/March
5.  PSC Delegate Assembly Meeting/Nationwide Strike and Contract Campaign Working Group Update
6. NYSHIP Forum (We have a date: April 27th!)
7. AP Meeting Process and Decision Making

3. President Kelly’s Budget Update

At the end of February, President Kelly met with the AP Co-Coordinators to discuss the dire state of CUNY’s Budget and the implications for The Graduate Center.  You deserve to know this information as well; make yourself familiar with CUNY’s budget issues as a whole in order to help preserve quality and accessible education, at all levels. A summary of the information he presented follows.
-Over the past 3 years of cumulative cuts the CUNY budget has been reduced by $6.377 million.  (Don’t forget!  A decrease in public funding means an increase in privatization, with major consequences for academic freedom, job security, standard of living, and access and justice for educators and students!)
-So far most of those cuts have been, in Kelly’s words “made invisible” at the Grad Center: by using reserves, buying forward in supplies etc., and in “personnel economies” around automating functions, weekend hours, etc.
-The New York fiscal year begins on April 01, and the CUNY Budget is again proposed to be cut across the board: $95 million dollars in total of preliminary and mid-year cuts to the ’11-’12 budget.
-Some (approximately the $11.9 million, the equivalent of the mid-year cuts) has been covered by the 5% spring tuition increase, which mostly goes to the state to fund shortfalls and not to the institutions that raise tuition.  This leaves a $83.2 million problem.
-A MAJOR WAY to deal with this problem is to ask for legislative relief, that is, to intervene, lobby etc. AT ALBANY against these budget cuts.  SEE BELOW FOR ACTION YOU CAN TAKE ON THIS ISSUE.
-President Kelly proposed that the other two ways to deal with these financial shortfalls are 1) to revisit “modest and regulated tuition increases going forward,” around 2%, of which CUNY would keep about half, and 2) to continue economies and cuts.  As you may have heard, there is already a suspension on filling most vacant positions at the Graduate Center.  This will, according to Kelly, “fall heavily on staff and on those who depend on staff to provide those services.”  Eventually this will come down to the programs.  How deep can we cut? Have we already hit the veins?

4. PSC’s Direct Action to Stop Austerity Budget: March 23rd!

From the PSC’s website: “On Wednesday, March 23, the PSC will lead a peaceful, non-violent protest in Albany, during which some of us are prepared to risk arrest to stop an austerity budget from passing. I am writing to ask you to join us. All who want to participate in peaceful protest are welcome….There will be important support roles for those who choose not to risk arrest. Contact Rob Murray, Organizing Director, at rmurray@pscmail.org or (212) 354-1252 to sign up.”  For more information, see http://psc-cuny.org/get-involved/direct-action-stop-austerity-budget.  This is a great opportunity to take a direct lesson from Wisconsin: the time to take action is NOW!