On Monday July 11, members of the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, which represents more than twenty-seven thousand faculty and staff at the City University of New York, received an email from the American Arbitration Association asking them to respond to a short and straightforward question. “Do you accept the proposed PSC-CUNY contract: yes or no?”

Though the question was simple, making the right choice was much more complicated.

By the time the email arrived, PSC members, including full-time and part-time faculty, librarians, and staff, had been working without a contract for more than six years. While some tenure-track faculty had continued to receive promotions as well as annual raises which had kept their wages somewhat above water, many other workers — including adjunct faculty who are rarely promoted and are eligible to receive small salary step increases only every three years — had seen their wages stagnate and in many instances fall steeply thanks to the rapidly rising cost of living.