The union that represents City University of New York faculty members is warning that many adjunct instructors risk having their health benefits "severely reduced" unless the university is pressured to pump more money into a benefit fund.
In a letter to adjunct union members on Monday, officials of the Professional Staff Congress, which represents both faculty and staff in the CUNY system, said they are urging all of the organization's members to contact the CUNY administration and demand that it provide the benefit fund enough money to keep up with increases in both the cost of health insurance and the number of adjunct faculty members who are eligible for it. The union is urging members to sign petitions, send letters, and demonstrate at the September 26 meeting of CUNY's Board of Trustees, the letter says.
"We must make CUNY hear our demand—loud and clear and often—for a permanent, equitable plan for adjunct health insurance," says the letter, signed by Barbara Bowen, the union's president, and Marcia Newfield, its vice president for part-time personnel. "Winning this campaign," the letter adds, "will require extraordinary and visible effort."
Pamela S. Silverblatt, CUNY's vice chancellor for labor relations, said the university has been abiding by its collective-bargaining agreement with the union and with the contract's provisions regarding financing for adjunct health benefits. "We urge the union to resist inflammatory strategies and work with the university to explore alternatives," she said in a statement issued on Monday.
At issue in the union's campaign are health-insurance benefits provided to some of the system's adjunct faculty by the union's PSC-CUNY Welfare Fund, a repository of many of CUNY's benefit contributions under the terms of its collective-bargaining agreement with the Professional Staff Congress, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. For full-time employees, who are covered by the separately administered New York City Health Benefits Program, the fund handles only supplemental health benefits, such as dental and prescription-drug coverage. But the fund provides basic health benefits to roughly 1,700, or 13 percent, of the 13,000 adjuncts employed by CUNY, who qualify if they have worked at CUNY for a year, teach at least two courses, and have no other primary health insurance.
The Board of Trustees of the PSC-CUNY Welfare Fund passed a resolution last month declaring that the fund had only enough reserves to cover one more full year of its projected operating deficit and that it will need to significantly reduce its health-insurance benefit to adjuncts by September 2012 if CUNY does not make additional money available. The resolution said that for the 2011 fiscal year, the fund had an estimated $9-million deficit, which it projected to reach $12.5-million in fiscal 2012.
The resolution said CUNY's contribution to the fund has remained unchanged since fiscal 2003, while the number of eligible adjuncts has increased from about 1,070 to 1,720, and the annualized premium per person has increased from about $3,260 to about $8,120. As a result, CUNY's share of the cost of providing such a benefit has dwindled from 80 percent to 20 percent, forcing the fund to take steps such as drawing upon its financial reserves and subsidizing the health benefits of adjuncts with money that the university contributed to the fund on behalf of full-time faculty and staff.
"What's needed is a structural solution: a source of adjunct health insurance that increases support as the number of participants and the costs increase," argues the letter that Ms. Bowen and Ms. Newfield sent to adjuncts Monday.
In recent contract negotiations, the union has asked the university system's administration to take steps such as putting substantially more money into the fund and allowing some adjuncts who work more than 20 hours a week to transfer into the city-administered health-benefits program. The administration, however, has refused to do so, partly because the city will not count nonclassroom hours in considering adjuncts' eligibility for its benefits program, which is open to city employees who work more than 20 hours per week.
