Rally and march against executive pay raises at Monday’s Board Meeting

Students United for a Free CUNY has announced a rally and march to the Board of Trustee’s meeting on Monday, June 25 to oppose pay scale increases for top administrators. Under this plan, the maximum salaries for deans, provosts, presidents, and Central administrators would rise at least 22%. The Chancellor’s maximum salary would jump 54% to $724,470, not including salary supplements such as housing allowances. (For details on the plan, see our analysis here.)

Nearly 700 people have already signed a petition against the proposed executive compensation plan, and LaGuardia Student Vice-President Brandon Clarke and others voiced strong opposition to the plan at last week’s borough hearing:

I ask the board: do you honestly believe this is the appropriate time to set the stage for an eventual pay-raise for the University’s administration; when so many of our students are suffering, and the administration’s staff has been working without a contract for nearly three years now? Can we all agree, at least, that this proposal coincides with one of the most turbulent periods in CUNY’s history in recent memory?

Faculty and staff have also been vocal in their opposition. “So while our working class students are struggling with tuition hikes, CUNY’s top administrators will receive nice new paychecks. There’s no justice in this,” said Bill Crain, Professor at City College.

Students, faculty, staff, and community members are invited to Madison Square Park at 2 p.m., preceding the march to the Board of Trustees meeting, which starts at 4:30 p.m.

The Facebook event page is located at http://www.facebook.com/events/434923033208806

This is an outrage; it is another attack on working class students and their families. Tuition goes up, and so does the CUNY’s top administrators’s salaries? This is a prime example of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Let us stop the cogs of this machine, together. The youth of our communities can no longer be deprived of their right to an education.

What does this say about the value that CUNY places on teaching and research? We can’t even get more sections and advisors to graduate on time!