CUNY On Strike is organized by members of PSC-CUNY (AFT Local 2334) and our allies who believe that a strike is the only way we can win the kind of union contract we deserve. We’re committed to rank-and-file organizing of the whole PSC-CUNY membership to engage in class struggle, recognizing that our greatest power comes from our role as workers.
CUNY On Strike (CoS) was born in November 2023, as more and more PSC members were newly inspired to engage in workplace activism by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and frustration with how slowly PSC contract negotiations were progressing. Initial events included “Strikesgiving” (an initial organizing gathering), a CUNY On Strike contingent at the PSC’s “Sing Out/Shout Out” rally, and strike social events.
Beginning in the Spring 2024 semester, CoS began hosting Strike Schools, a tactic we learned from our comrades at Rutgers, who successfully used Strike Schools to build strike support and train new organizers leading up to their 2023 strike.
Our campaign and organizing philosophy has three prongs:
- Strike Schools, to provide political education to PSC members and train new organizers
- Strike Stewards, who organize on their campuses
- Community assemblies, so that members of our union can discuss our thoughts and analyses of our situation and collectively decide what we think and what we should do.
On April 25, 2024, the CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampment was launched. Many members of CUNY On Strike were involved in the encampment, and while we had already hosted one assembly in the Graduate Center’s English department in March and a political education event on what assemblies are and why they’re useful, camp was where we were first able to really put this organizing vision into practice.
On April 29, approximately 200 PSC members gathered alongside other camp participants in our first CUNY-wide assembly to discuss how to support the encampment and advocate for the Five Demands as union members. After much discussion, assembly participants voted to organize for a wildcat sick-out for May Day, responding to the call of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.
As campus security and the NYPD brutalized and arrested our students and colleagues during the night of April 30, the sick-out pledge passed the 250-person threshold voted by the assembly, and the first known job action in PSC history was on.
Two more CUNY-wide community assemblies have been held since then, as well as a Hunter College assembly. Through these discussions, PSC members in attendance have explored the possibility of joining our colleagues at Columbia, NYU, The New School, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in a grade strike campaign (ultimately, the assembly voted against this idea) and have committed to organizing for Nakba Day in support of the Five Demands and for dropping the charges against the CUNY community members (including those deemed “unaffiliated” by the university) who were arrested on April 30.
As the movement for Palestine continues to develop, and our union’s contract negotiations with CUNY continue, we need everyone involved! If our organizing framework and principles seem aligned with your values and political goals, get involved today by filling out our interest form! We know the PSC is not yet strike-ready, but we believe we need to get strike ready in order to win the kind of contract we deserve and stand up against oppression everywhere using our power as organized workers. Even 5 minutes of your time per week can help build our campaign.
CUNY On Strike 