At five in the morning on Thursday, June 16, after bargaining for eighteen straight hours, our union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), reached a tentative contract agreement with the City University of New York (CUNY). The deal came six years after our previous contract had expired and after a pitched battle against the university and New York State government.

Financially, the proposed contract is largely consistent with other New York State and City contracts — it does not break the regime of imposed austerity. But unlike many recent labor settlements, the agreement we reached is not primarily a defensive effort to resist concessions. While the power the PSC — a single militant union — was able to build was not enough to defeat austerity, it was enough to force real structural changes in the workplace, some of which we had been trying to achieve for fifteen years.

The victories were won in the face of a fiercely resistant management with a radically different vision for the university. Perhaps most significant, the structural changes will enhance learning conditions for CUNY students — students who have faced decades of cutbacks and planned poverty for their university.