Mass Demonstration at LaGuardia Community College

June 11, 2016 
By Stephanie West

Queens, NY – Several hundreds demonstrated at LaGuardia Community College on June 8th including students, faculty and staff. The issue continues to be the  systematic underfunding and draining of resources from the college.

The NY Times recently published a front-page article on the effects of state disinvestment at the CUNY senior colleges. CUNY’s community colleges are also struggling and in need of greater City and State investment. 

The demonstration, organized by the LaGuardia chapter of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) and Local 384 of DC37,  called on CUNY to freeze tuition through 2020, settle decent contracts for university faculty and staff, reduce the unreasonable workload at the college which hurts students, and fully fund basic office hours for all faculty so that adjunct faculty are no longer pressured to work for free.

Tuition at LaGuardia has increased $1,500 over the last five years, all while the college’s 2,500 faculty and staff have been working under expired union contracts, without a raise for six years. CUNY faculty and professional staff recently voted 92% in favor of strike authorization.