What Faculty Unionism Really Accomplishes

I have spent nearly twenty years teaching at the City University of New York and to keep my job I have had no choice but to pay dues to CUNY’s faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC). Organized in 1974, the PSC was one of the first public university faculty unions. Since it is located in pro-union New York City, the PSC has had every opportunity to work with politicians to improve CUNY’s reputation, its students’ outcomes, and its faculty’s working conditions. It has failed on each of those measures. The main reason why is that the union leadership prefers to maximize its power and inflow of money at the expense of the students’ education and the well-being of many faculty members.